


Paradise Lost

by skylight



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 19:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14817672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylight/pseuds/skylight
Summary: The one thing the prophets don't say about salvation is how brief it is.





	1. Lost

**Author's Note:**

> The acoustic version of Anna and the North's [_Us_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqjtm5GcjTw) is fantastic to listen to if you want to get into the right headspace for this. Fic title taken from John Milton's classic of the same name because I haven't mastered the elusive art of coming up with my own titles.
> 
> My endless thanks go out to the mods for being patient with me, to my laptop for working overtime all those nights, and to everyone who told me I could do this.

⋆  
  
너의 내일이 되고 싶어서 오늘을 살아왔어  
_I wanted to be your tomorrow, so I lived through today_  
사랑이란 말을 조금이라도 일찍 알았다면  
_If only I had known love a little earlier_  
  
⋆

****

  


(Like all love stories, they begin as two.)

Time is a strange, changed thing.

Wonwoo opens his eyes, blinking away the last remnants of sleep, counting the seconds before his body recalibrates and details come into focus. For the past three days, he's woken up in the same convenience store, greeted by the same bag of potato chips, no doubt hurriedly stuffed back into its spot on the shelf - by a child being called by his parents at the counter, maybe. He can almost hear the loud "come on, we're leaving!". The cartoon character on the packet beams at him, upside-down, its smile and lifted hand and the crinkle in its exactly as it was yesterday. Time, he learns, has become a frozen thing.

His throat tastes awful, but that's nothing new. As if afraid there would be someone else in the room, he makes an effort to clear it quietly, the sound of his own voice alien in the silence. He doesn't use it often; to be fair, he hasn't needed to in a while. The only other sounds he makes are hushed, dissipating like wisps of thin smoke into the stillness around him - the scratch of his dusty jeans against the sleeping bag beneath him, the light crackle of his bones as they wake, a deep exhale.

A sliver of sun filters into the convenience store through a grilled window just below the ceiling, bathing the white tiles of the floor in a strange, sickly glow. Wonwoo lifts his arm to the light, and watches curiously as the fine hair on his skin is tinged silver.

Learning to tell the good days apart doesn't take a great deal of patience; it had only taken him a month.

It's tricky at first. The air is always benign, and there are rainy days as there are sunny ones. In truth, there is no algorithm - the better days come at random. The better days, Wonwoo realises, are when daylight tastes harsh, like sand and rock and some perverted sense of adventure, instead of seeping into his skin like the aftertaste of rain and the memories of days past. The better days are when he doesn't think about where he's going today, when he doesn't think about what it would feel like to stop breathing, when he doesn't _think_ \- when he simply savours the blankness and runs through the motions of being alive.

Breakfast is canned beans, a treat compared to his usual measly packet of crackers, wolfed down as the roams through the aisles and fills his backpack with bottled water and whatever else he can carry. On impulse, he indulges himself in some packs of softened chocolate (he isn't ever truly sure with dairy, but the expiration date isn't for another year and a half.) The space in his bag is generous, but only because he doesn't have much else by way of belongings - just his sleeping bag, folded messily into its compression case, a framed picture with shattered glass, and three sets of clothing that he switches out for newer ones whenever he comes across apparel stores.

His most prized possessions, his thin and only line of defence, he keeps on his person.

Holstered firmly against his hip, the weight of his handgun feels like an anchor grounding him to the small semblance of safety he has left. It's missing only one bullet, but otherwise fully loaded. He'd made a promise to himself in the beginning to not use it unless completely necessary; after all, ammunition is difficult, if not impossible, to come by. To compensate, he'd placed pocket knives everywhere they could fit - his jeans, jacket, a pouch strapped to his backpack - and practised enough to hit his mock bullseyes nine out of ten times.

Checking them feels like second nature, rehearsed across too many mornings. (It's really only been 89, but no one's counting.) The magazine of his handgun first, then patting his pockets to feel the familiar press of blades against fabric. Metal is an extension of him now, and Wonwoo would've laughed bitterly at how terribly science-fiction that sounds.

He takes a deep breath and pushes past the creaking glass doors, out into the sun.

  


⋆

  


Collapsed signboards and shattered street lamps litter the ground of this new town he'd wandered into, metal bent at grotesque angles, its exposed edges dotted with the telltale beginnings of rust. Some of them are old, the traditional type with broad _hangeul_ printed in garish yellow font, and others are the pretty neon ones he's seen on the Internet. In another time, Wonwoo imagines that they would've been humming quietly in the evenings, steeping patrons in soft pinks and blues as they step past the threshold of some bar.

Call it habit or paranoia, but Wonwoo never stays in one place extended periods of time, never more than the few days it would take to explore and pilfer food and supplies from the abandoned stores. The longest he'd gone without moving on was a week, but that was because he'd been an idiot and had tried to scale a fire escape, only to end up tearing through the skin on his thigh in a fall.

The town he'd been in that morning, the one with the convenience store, was a traditional one, full of medicinal shops and old Korean restaurants. This one is more modern, even has a cybercafe. It feels almost like backpacking, Wonwoo muses. He doesn't know where he is - the street signs are either faded or damaged beyond repair - but the amenities (and the lack of a river) tells him he hasn't accidentally walked into North Korea, at least.

There's a fine line between finding refuge and courting danger. Safe places are commonly in the backs of shops, maybe the second floor of an abandoned motel, where the shadows are long and the cover of darkness wide and also where threats are most prone to be. Wonwoo always has his knives in hand as he enters these places for the first time, footfalls silent, scouting entrances and exits to decide if this is just safe enough. He's chosen a laundromat today, windows plastered with 'for sale' notices and phone numbers and poorly done graffiti in what looks like permanent marker ink. The lighting isn't too revealing, yet not suffocating, just enough for the black corners to be thin gray instead. He sets his backpack down by a vending machine, the once-pristine white now a grimy green, and steels himself to scout the perimeter.

Dried blood is smeared across the floor.

If anyone were to ask him, Wonwoo wouldn't know how to tell them what he expects when he roams whatever secluded town or suburb he finds himself in. All of them exist in an eerie sort of equilibrium, so still that he feels like an unwelcome disruption merely by setting foot in the streets, as if it would all break like glass. He hasn't met a single living soul for longer than he cares to remember - what are the chances, after everything that had happened? Yet, _yet,_ a flicker of hope in him stubbornly refuses to die, kept alive by the way he holds his breath every time he rounds a corner, as if expecting to see something more than empty alleyways or his own reflection in a storefront display.

It doesn't happen dramatically, as life is wont to do sometimes, or as Wonwoo had let himself imagine it to. It doesn't unfold like it would in one of those zombie films his friends used to make him watch - one lone survivor in a crumbling building, trying desperately to conceal themselves, the tense silence interrupted harshly by loud pounding against a barricaded door. "Help! Open this, they're coming!" the character would plead, eyes frenzied and mouth trembling, and then all hell would break loose.

This happens so suddenly and so _normally_ that it comes across almost as comedic.

Wonwoo returns from his scouting trip (coast clear) to find his backpack being prodded at by a large lump, a _moving_ lump with a head of soft brown hair. His footsteps betray him - the slightest sound is always too loud in the still air - and the lump whirls around, rises to its full height, poised midway between fight and flight.

A boy - no older than he is but at least a good couple of inches taller, with traces of grime smeared across his cheek, surprise in every rounded edge of the 'o' of his mouth. Wonwoo can only stare, watching as his features morph from fear to shock to an expression that faintly resembles intrigue. If this was a test of survival, they both would've failed spectacularly; letting your guard down and freezing in disbelief are cardinal sins.

"You've got something on your face." The words slip past Wonwoo's defences unbidden.

"Oh," the boy says by way of an answer, thumbing at both his cheeks until only a faint gray line remains where the dirt had been. That would have to do. He sounds sheepish, shy, all emotion and no bite. "Thanks."

Hoisting his backpack higher over his shoulder, he fumbles uneasily under the weight of Wonwoo's gaze. "Sorry, I... I was just curious when I saw your backpack because, I mean, it looked out of place and someone else could actually be alive, then, and—" A pause comes to him, the slow realisation that he's gotten ahead of himself dawning on his face. "You're, like, _okay,_ right? I mean, you seem okay." He doesn't need to clarify _okay_ for either of them to understand.

Wonwoo nods wordlessly, and receives a simple "okay, good" in return.

"I'm Mingyu."

By all means, their first meeting is messy, the tangled threads of two people who've forgotten what it's like to hold civil conversation or string coherent words together. But messiness is a flaw, an error in interpersonal calculation, loud and improper and _human_ , and for a peculiar moment, Wonwoo feels as if life itself is shifting around him as time begins to move again. The motion feels alien to him. He offers his name in return nonetheless, clasps Mingyu's proffered hand in an awkward half-handshake, and makes a note to remember that the skin is seasoned, calloused, and so, so gentle.

  


⋆

  


To call it strange would be an understatement - sitting on the cold, chalky tile floor with someone who was neither dead nor trying to kill him, watching the last of the day's pale blue fade into orange, the pink, and the beginnings of lilac. He'd gotten so used to the echoes of his own breathing that an accompanying set feels jarring.

Wonwoo stares down at the knives in his lap, shining dimly in the receding light, and quietly admonishes himself one last time for not even being able to brandish them earlier. (A small voice in his head shushes him, tells him he wouldn't have needed to.) The quiet between them is thick, the kind to chafe like sandpaper. He hasn't spoken to anyone in _months_ ; the last time he'd had conversation easily and calmly was before any of this, before the world had been ravaged, before, in a different lifetime.

For once, it hadn't been anyone's fault - more succinctly, it had been _everyone's_ fault - so plenty of blame to go around and no political scapegoats to unload it all on.

Man had been greedy. In their endless pursuit of knowledge and technological innovation, they had been careless with the earth, combating the problems that arose from advanced science with even more science. The ozone layer had been thinning for years, the catalyst for the fusion and mutation of once-harmless gases in the atmosphere, creating a monstrosity that even the world's most brilliant minds couldn't grasp - a virus strain that worked too quickly for them to remedy.

South Korea awoke to a world drowned in chaos - whole pastures of land, an entire season's worth of hard-grown crops either dead or dying, peeling away from their roots like a misshappen alien species. Livestock became carcasses in hours, flesh eaten from the inside out by an unseen force, nothing left in its wake but the gory remains of muscle and tendon wet against the white of solid bone.

But they were a parasite species, and the one thing the scientists feared came to pass. It played out like a hyperreal version of those C-grade zombie films that would be on television sometimes.

Workplaces, homes, parks, shopping malls - one by one, every country, city, town, street fell into disarray. Armed forces were gunning the assailants down in the tens, hundreds, before losing their lives. Students entered classrooms to see their friends being maimed by their teachers, parents coming home to strangers feeding on their children's mangled corpses, _just_ enough time to feel terror seep into their veins before their world went white, red, and then black.

The governments and medical boards worked down to the last person attempting to diagnose and cure those infected, but facilities fell off the radar one at a time, until the global network went dark.

Ultimately, they never figured it out, how it spread, its symptoms, if it was still an active strain. As the books used to say, the world as they knew it came to an end - overrun with men, women, and children infected with the primal desire to kill any living organism on sight for sustenance.

There isn't anyone to document the aftermath of sand, blood, and nothingness; survivors, if any, are strewn all over the globe with no means of reaching out to each other. Wonwoo had only ever met one of them, when he'd been alone, sitting on the doorstep of his home, and—

"I'm sorry if I scared you." Mingyu's voice coaxes him out of his thoughts, like sand falling through his fingertips. It doesn't jolt him as conversation so sudden should. For someone with such a broad build, Mingyu is tender, almost childlike, actions measured and smile toothy, the kind of person to gently wash away someone's worries. If he closes his eyes, Wonwoo is certain he can hear the sea lapping at his submerged ankles.

He runs a finger along the hilt of one of his knives, polished wood grains fine to the touch. "You didn't," he says. "It's just... it's been a really long time since I spoke to anyone."

Mingyu's answering laugh is one part amused, two parts bitter. It's raspy too, both from disuse and dehydration. "Tell me about it."

The silence between them thins, wedging itself between their shoulders, inches apart, a blanket of shared understanding and human connection. Wonwoo can feel the soft pang of hunger, but his sudden reluctance to move wins over. He's following the lines of a long cobweb when Mingyu speaks again. "Say, how old are you?"

"Last I checked, I was 24." He doesn't know what month it is, or if it's actually bled into a new year.

"Oh, okay." Mingyu's replies never seem indifferent no matter how mundane the topic, just short of brimming with interest. "I am - I was? - 23, so I'm a year younger than you, hyung."

They stay like that for the rest of the evening, next to the last of the old washing machines and right by the destroyed counter. A torn checkbook lies on the floor just past their outstretched legs. Curiosity burns in Wonwoo's veins like a feral animal, like a _need,_ and there is so much he wants to pry into. _Where are you from? How are you still alive? Have you met anyone? Have you lost anyone? Are you only living because it's marginally better than death? Are you like me - helplessly cynical yet raised by a family who believed in hope?_

Mingyu doesn't ask if he can stay, and Wonwoo doesn't tell him he can't.

  


⋆

  


Nighttime comes too soon in the days that follow, as if the day hasn't quite gotten accustomed to this new change of pace, as if it doesn't know how to compute the long strides Mingyu takes when they walk and the innocent way he strings his words together. Perhaps it's simply because Wonwoo had been so used to counting the days and hours by the unchanging expanse of tar and buildings and crushed greenery, instead of measuring it by speech and touch and warmth. It's hard to keep track, but he doesn't mind.

As all new things do, conversation had come slowly, but it came nonetheless. They start easy - easy questions, easy answers, easy emotions - like when Wonwoo returns from his raid of the grocer with an armful of energy bars and crackers, bottled and canned goods clinking softly against each other in the drawstring bag Mingyu had lent him. He sets a pack of dried seaweed in Mingyu's hands, and watches as his eyes widen.

"This is my favourite brand! How did you know?"

He hadn't, Wonwoo wants to say. The shelves weren't lined with an array of untouched food as it had been in other towns; this one had either been raided by someone before him, or nearly emptied in an emergency stockpile by the people who used to live here. It had occurred to him that he should try to bring something back for Mingyu - not as a reward or a gift or anything quite like that, but because he remembered doing that for his roommate in university. 

_It was a jab in the dark,_ he wants to admit. Instead, he says, "I'm psychic," and the response takes both of them by surprise. Wonwoo hasn't thought himself capable of humour in a long time. Silence greets him, stretches out for one, two, three seconds, and then slips away, buoyed by Mingyu's soft laughter. His heart lurches a little at the sound.

"Should've told me that sooner. I would've asked you to read my palm."

They venture into deeper territory easily enough, often unbidden, sort of like swimming in an infinity pool - shallow water, glowing a calm blue to lull the senses, high above the noise of some city and an edge away from freefalling into 30 stories of gravity. (Being with Mingyu makes the fall seem less precarious somehow, and the leap into hundreds of feet of a subject as tentative as the past doesn't feel as threatening as it should.)

Watching Mingyu rearrange the belongings in his backpack brings to mind images of a child on a Sunday morning, putting his playpen in order when everything had been fine just before. Perhaps it's to keep his hands busy.

"What do you fight with?" Wonwoo asks, only just recalling that he's never seen Mingyu with a weapon. Going unprotected is hardly a viable option, a fool's choice, an invitation for death.

Mingyu pulls out a slim black baton, the kind some old men keep under their driver's seats as a precaution. "I have this, but I really just prefer running. That's what my long legs are for, you know." Cheekiness colours his voice a light yellow in Wonwoo's mind; it's nice.

He wants to ask if Mingyu can even run without being noticed, or if he can make sharp corners - he's not exactly small in stature - but realises it would probably be a rude thing to say. So, instead, he takes a (measured) sip of water and asks why.

"Why what?"

"Why do you want to risk trying to outrun them? Some of them are pretty quick, especially the kids. It's much better to kill them straight if you have a good weapon."

Mingyu snorts. "As if your idea of fighting them up close with knives is any safer."

For half a heartbeat, Wonwoo is content to let the question slide. It's not something he needs to know - whatever keeps someone alive should suffice. The silence grows taut between them, like a string on the verge of snapping in two. "It's because I saw a girl being bludgeoned to death once," is Mingyu's final answer. Hesitation, a light blue-grey. "I mean, I knew she was infected, but... I don't want to be the one who has to do that."

Something in Wonwoo shifts, and he looks down at Mingyu's clasped hands like the morbid reply is written in the curve of his fingers. "Well, I guess it's a good thing you have me now."

  


⋆

  


Mingyu is a creator.

He's good with his hands, building things, shaping them. The spare parts they come across are fashioned into little trinkets, fabric into makeshift tents, no matter how much Wonwoo tells him he needn't trouble himself. (Only half-heartedly, because there's a pretty spark in Mingyu's eyes when he successfully brings an idea to life.)

His height is a newfound advantage, too. Wonwoo is relieved of having to climb shelves to reach the supplies stashed right on top, a hazardous task he's always had to take up himself. 

It's their third departmental store raid together - an unexciting side quest, if any - and the motions are starting to become familiar. Mingyu would scour the grocer for dried food and the hardware section for supplies, while Wonwoo picks out new sets of clothing for them both. He's learnt that all colours look good on Mingyu, but blue works best, and attempts to find that if he can.

The arrangement is twenty minutes, rendezvous at the first escalator they'd seen.

Their footfalls are light, past broken glass and the occasional bag, contents spilled on the floor. Wonwoo is distracted by a shattered compact concealer when he realises that Mingyu has fallen out of step, stopping in front of what appears to have been a kiosk selling novelty gifts.

Standing pristinely in the midst of the chaos, like the eye of a storm long gone, its main display is a selection of little toy cars, luster lost just slightly, colours dimmed in the darkness. "We have to go," he almost whispers, the words catching in his throat just before they make it out into the open. This feels like a dream, a temporal space in which the world didn't end, an isolated pocket of imagination where Mingyu can lose himself for a little while.

Wonwoo doesn't have the heart to wrench them both out of this moment, so he clutches a little tighter at the hastily folded clothes under his arm, and just _watches._

After circling the kiosk twice, Mingyu reaches out to pluck an item out of the tiny shelf on the counter, so small that Wonwoo can't make it out until it's safely attached to his jacket lapel. A pin, a four-leaf clover, the green petals separated by tiny silver ridges. The tips of Mingyu's fingers ghost against Wonwoo's chest as he pulls away.

"For you," he smiles. "For good luck."

  


⋆

  


Their first run-in comes a few days after that, in the next town over and in a hardware store that reminds Wonwoo of the neighbourhood he grew up in. The bright yellow posters on the walls would have been pasted too high on the walls for him to reach, the jukebox playing some nostalgic trot album that the owner enjoyed. They come up to his forehead now, and only his own thoughts ring in his ears, a poor substitute for music.

A loud cry forces his heart into his throat, deafening compared to the hushed sounds he's so used to hearing. For a moment, a silly moment, Wonwoo placates himself with the thought that Mingyu had probably just stumbled on something in the dark - he'd gone looking for rope, the 12th aisle, the faded directory on the counter read, almost right in the back where the walls probably hadn't seen the light of day for months.

"Mingyu? You—"

But then he hears it - a sound he's tried over sleepless nights to purge from memory, a sound that runs like a persistent chill down his spine, settling in his stomach like an unwelcome weight. A feral, animalistic growl, torn from the depths of a creature who no longer knew human emotion.

Peace wasn't created to last; the world wasn't made that way, and Wonwoo knows a person can only run for so long without incident. The glass sheen of the repose he's managed to find with Mingyu is cracking, and he can _hear_ the fracture, the fissure. It terrifies him.

This time, the crash is identifiable - it's the sound of wood splintering against the tile, screws bouncing off the floor in a light _plink plink_ , a strange subdued encore to a loud refrain, and the crashes become more frequent as Wonwoo spins on his heel and runs, heart racing. They sound like thunderclaps.

He refuses to be paralysed by the same kind of dread that had gripped him once before, refuses to bend the knee to an old enemy as notorious as fear. The warmth that washes over him when Mingyu smiles, the low rasp of his voice when he talks about some faraway thing, the feeling of being near him - Wonwoo refuses to lose them, too.

Aisle 12 is chaos.

Mingyu's body is racked with tenseness, trembling as he backs further and further away from the dead end, delaying a bent and distorted creature by throwing furniture at it. The remains of two chairs lie disintegrated on the floor, a broken wooden leg lodged in the shoulder of the beast.

It's leering, eyes bloodshot and veins pulsing under the sockets, purple and green and dying, feeling no pain. As if in one last show of resistance, it lunges at them on bony legs. Wonwoo hurls a knife at it.

The blade lands right between its eyes, and the body of a what used to man crumples to the ground.

Despite everything that had just happened, their exit is slow and muted, every action weighed down by trepidation and relief.

After his breathing tapers out, Wonwoo steps forward to retrieve his knife, metal dislodging from dead flesh with a sickening squelch. He ignores the cold sweat running down his back, takes great pains to will the bile back down his throat, and slings two small rolls of rope over his shoulders - that was what they had come for, after all.

There's a light draft blowing against them when he makes it back to the end of the aisle, a reprieve from the stench of blood and muscle, Mingyu's hair fluttering lightly as he stares, unseeing, past Wonwoo's shoulder. "He's dead," he says, as if the words would set the truth in stone.

"Yes," Wonwoo answers simply.

Light is a tricky thing, dim and weak in the darkness, yet it falls on the edges of Mingyu's face like the soft caress of a brilliant full moon. He looks ethereal, transient, untouchable. A small part of Wonwoo wants to test that, and so he does - reach out to take Mingyu's hand. The warmth is real, the press of their skin, throbbing with the life they'd just taken. Wonwoo looks up to find Mingyu's gaze trained on him.

"Let's go."

"Okay." Mingyu follows him, hand in his.

  


⋆

  


"Take these."

Wonwoo holds out the new set of knives he'd grabbed on his way out of the hardware store, hilt first, the sharp metal resting precariously against the pads of his fingers. He'd known he had to. The mere _thought_ of that happening again - of Mingyu being cornered by not one but many infected victims, trying to claw at his skin and rip life from him - is torture enough.

Mingyu takes them, but is quick to mumble an admission. "I don't know how to use them."

"It's fine, I'll teach you from tomorrow onwards." He zips up his backpack, pushes it to rest on the arm of the low sofa he's sitting on. Tonight, their hideout is the second floor of an old bookstore, walls pockmarked by bullet holes on one side. The books had been untouched, the smell of yellowed paper and the promise of escape by words tempting, and in another time, Wonwoo would have used the last fragments of daylight to read as many pages as he can.

Truth be told, no prose will help him untangle the jumbled mess in his head. He's afraid, but less of what happened than this feeling _of_ being afraid. The fear that had gripped him earlier today was a different kind of fear, tinged with an emotion he'd no longer thought himself capable of, an attachment he'd tried to suppress and never feel again, for fear of wounding his own heart.

The clicking motions of taking apart and reassembling his gun calms him down - the grip, the barrel, the magazine - as if putting metallic parts back will somehow help him piece his own together. He does it, again and again, barely noticing as Mingyu fishes out a large pack of biscuits and opens it for them both.

"Hyung, you should eat."

"I'm not hungry." Even to his own ears, his answer is distracted, brash.

When the parts come together with a click for the sixth time, Mingyu's hand slides into view, gently pressing the flat edge of the gun down onto his thigh. The action feels like a plea. "Are you mad at me?"

 _God,_ no, now he's made Mingyu upset. "No, no, of course not," he says, a little too quickly, like the words are stumbling out of him in their race to reassure. "No."

"I wasn't being careful. I'm sorry."

Wonwoo feels his hand twitch under Mingyu's. A storm is raging in his head, and behind the thunder is the sound of a fortress collapsing, bricks of iron tumbling to the earth. How strange. "You shouldn't be."

"Hyung," Mingyu ventures, in a small, small voice, like he's held off on asking the question for as long as he can, and that this is the right time - when the fortress collapses, you take it - to broach the subject. "Where are we actually going?"

Of all the things he'd expected Mingyu to ask, this isn't one of them, all childlike innocence and a faint glow in his cheeks as he looks up at Wonwoo from his spot on the floor, shoulder almost pressed against his knee. He doesn't know if his answer is whole truth, partial truth, or no truth, if it even answers the question, so he opts for, "I don't know."

The look on Mingyu's face tells him he'd expected this answer, but it's also the look of mild hurt, a soldier who's been shut out on the battlefield, outside his cavalry's locked doors. "You have to be going _somewhere_."

"I'm not."

"You have to—"

"Don't assume things, Mingyu. You don't know me, and you don't know anything _about_ me."

His voice is cold, and therein lies the problem. Mingyu is a son of fire, heat in his nature, an alluring warmth that melts even the most frigid things, and Wonwoo should've known better than to put up a front. "You're wrong," Mingyu breathes, rising up onto his knees right in front of him, his big hands reaching up to rest against Wonwoo's cheeks, holding his face like the slightest pressure would cause him to break. "I know you're kind, kind enough to let me stay. I know you protect the things that matter to you, and that's why you built a wall around yourself."

Mingyu lets his words register before he speaks again. "But you're also right - I don't know much else about you." His thumbs are running light circles just over Wonwoo's cheekbones, the tips of his fingers brushing against strands of jet black hair. "So tell me," he whispers. "Tell me about yourself."

It's a terribly lighthearted question to ask over firearms, right after they'd just killed someone.

"Why?" Wonwoo means to sound angry, defensive, so he can slam the door to his past in Mingyu's face. _Why the fuck would you want to know?_ But there is barely a trace of temper, only the soft wisp of fear - remembering is a painful thing to do.

"Because we can't keep doing this forever," and here Mingyu's hands leave his face, reach down to pluck the gun out of his hands and place it on the sofa next to him. Wonwoo is certain his breath hitches when their fingers rest in the spaces between each other's, but he's too distracted by the closeness to be certain. "And because you saved me."

(Something in his voice tells Wonwoo he's not talking about saving his life.)

And Wonwoo wants, with all his heart, to tell him. Mingyu deserves that much after all the time they've spent together, for all the time they have ahead of them, and even if they didn't, even if they'd parted ways, he still deserves an explanation because he's Mingyu.

The words don't come, so Mingyu takes his and lays it out for him. "I'll start then," he says. "It's not fair for me to ask you to tell me if I don't tell you about myself first, so."

He'd grown up in the outskirts, Mingyu says, a pretty little town called Anyang. The streets are lined with complexes, stores selling everything imaginable, brightly-coloured signs calling out to shoppers and aspiring part-timers alike. He was above average in university, a member of the broadcasting and basketball clubs. (They'd tried to get him to join the collegiate league.)

Time passed slowly in a town like that, so it was up to him to speed up the clock - he took up part-time jobs wherever they would hire him, and those places were plenty. Delivery boy, painter, florist, and the one he enjoyed the most, kitchen assistant. They paid him handsomely with free meals, and he was due to be promoted to junior chef in the new year.

"Then the alert thing - you remember, the nationwide thing - sounded, and we were evacuated. I was on a different bus from my sister, because we went to different schools." He takes a deep breath. "We ended up at some random town and I tried to look for her, but then telecomms died. The place was crazy."

"I never found her." Mingyu's voice fluctuates, from low to chirpy, like the ending would help diffuse some of the tension he's created. "And I never got to learn that restaurant uncle's signature _bulgogi_ recipe."

Wonwoo is struck silent. It was a story of love and loss and normalcy ripped away from someone, it was every survivor's story, but it was also a story about _Mingyu._ It's so much _like_ him, every last word down to the pauses and punctuation.

It's easy to imagine - Mingyu as the talk of his neighbourhood, the handsome and tall and sunkissed boy even mothers would harbour a crush on, fawning over him every time he greets them by name at his workplaces. Mingyu with a fresh bouquet of flowers, delicately pieced together stalk by stalk, or in a tank top on a bright Saturday afternoon as he helps an old couple repaint the walls of their home. It's easy to imagine all the things Mingyu could've been, and it makes Wonwoo angry to think the universe would dare to steal that from a person so sweet.

"I... I never got to find my brother either," he says carefully, tasting the weight of the story on his tongue. "My mum brought us to Seoul when she was posted to KIST."

"The science research institution?"

"Yeah, the one. I became an agricultural education student at Seoul National University. Mum was happy about it - she was one of the bioscience heads at the institute - and my brother had just joined her lab a couple of months before as an intern. It was like a family trade; her colleagues loved it."

"But KIST is..." Mingyu trails off, and Wonwoo nods. Everyone knows the institute in Seoul had been one of the centres of mass casualties when the virus first spread to humans - they'd been analysing samples of infected plants. The silence tells Wonwoo that Mingyu understands, and that he doesn't need to elaborate.

He continues. "I had nowhere else to go, so I just sat outside my door and hoped someone would either come kill me or get me. A girl my age did, and we left Seoul together to get someplace else that we hoped would be safe."

Nayoung was beautiful, slim, athletic - the token female character who would survive in a post-apocalyptic film. Unassumingly, she played baseball, and could probably have swung a bat much harder than Wonwoo ever could. She was also sweet, kind, smart, everything he would've wanted in a friend, and right now, she was with the stars.

"She was attacked like you were today, by one of them that came out of nowhere. I couldn't get there in time, and all I could hear was her screaming for me." He lets his eyes flutter shut, then opens them again, to look at Mingyu's sweet face. How mismatched, to see it wrought with so much sadness; a part of Wonwoo now wishes he never told this story, if only to see that frown go away. "I watched her die."

The tremors coursing through his body are stilled by the firm pressure of Mingyu's hand in his. "My mum gave up her life looking for a way to keep people alive, and I don't want to waste that. I want to honour her that way, at least. So I'm not headed anywhere, Mingyu - I'm really just trying to stay alive for her."

_For you._

Exhaustion strikes him like ten feet of ocean waves; he hasn't told that story to anyone, but to be fair, there hasn't really been anyone to tell.

"I'm sorry," Mingyu says, and Wonwoo wants to chide him, to tell him that he doesn't need to apologise for something that wasn't his fault. "I'm sorry I lied."

"About what?"

"About why I wanted you to tell me about yourself."

The confession takes Wonwoo by surprise, and he blinks down at Mingyu like he's not making much sense. He isn't, really. "Because I saved your life."

Laughter, Mingyu's laughter, the bright peal of it, laps against his consciousness, the sun on a new day. It's not something that should exist in this wretched world - the sound is too beautiful for it. The exertion makes him squeeze Wonwoo's fingers slightly, and he brushes the back of his free hand against Wonwoo's cheek, an impulsive action neither of them seem to have put much thought into.

Mingyu murmurs his answer like it's a secret meant for just two. "Because I wanted to know what it's like to trust someone again. Because I just wanted to know more about _you_."

  


⋆

  


In hindsight, it shouldn't come as a surprise - even for someone who seems talented at almost anything he puts his mind to, Mingyu is exceedingly adept at handling knives. Every evening, an hour is set aside for practising maneuvers - the basics first, grip, slash, stab, and then more complicated ones like uppercuts and feints. All things considered, even with his extra height and body mass, Mingyu is only marginally slower than Wonwoo; his good aim and strong throw are more than enough to compensate for the lack in speed.

The only thing he truly needs to work on is finding a balance between his brute strength and the delicacy of knifework, a thought that Wonwoo muses aloud when Mingyu had accidentally slashed Wonwoo's forearm as they sparred.

"It's fine," he laughs, ruffling Mingyu's hair and watching in amusement as his pout deepens. He looks genuinely apologetic, genuinely upset with himself, but this is the lightest Wonwoo has felt in months. "A cut like this won't hurt me."

Something along the lines of two weeks pass this way: fourteen sunrises and sunsets, one stormy day, canned food, more raids, no new attacks. Wonwoo keeps the four-leaf clover pinned to his jacket, transferring it each time he gets a fresh set of clothes. The terrain is wilder now, a small town overrun with sand and weeds, tarred roads oddly melted in the heat.

Mingyu is an open book, Wonwoo a diligent reader - so, he learns.

Wonwoo learns that his loftiest dream, the kind he'd talk too loudly about whenever he'd had one too many bottles of _soju_ at his friend's mother's restaurant, is to be a chef in Europe, specialising in fusion fine dining. He used to fantasise about helming at the kitchen at the L'Abeille or the Ledbury, had repeated it countless times to his parents, only to receive good-natured laughter in response. "Work hard, then," they'd tell him, "and we'll come visit you in Paris or something." (He'd thought about what it would be like for fluent French to roll off Mingyu's tongue.)

Wonwoo learns that Mingyu most resembles the child that he is when he sleeps, curled up on his side like he wants to be smaller, hair fanned out behind him. For such a heavy sleeper, he snores only lightly, fists clenched in the fabric of his sleeping bag sometimes. "Good night, hyung," he would say every night before they retire, a ritual in place of a bedtime story. (He'd thought about what it would be like to lie next to Mingyu in the night, feeling the rise and fall of his chest like they were his own.)

Most of all, Wonwoo learns that Mingyu is beautiful - when the morning light falls on his skin, when he lends Wonwoo his jacket as a third layer because he's bad with the cold, when he lets Wonwoo have the last cracker, when he puts his head in Wonwoo's lap and looks up at him and asks silly questions about what he likes, what he doesn't like. Mingyu is beautiful, exceedingly so, when he smiles. (He'd thought about why Mingyu can still look like that, here at the end of all things, and selfishly hopes he'd been the reason behind any of those smiles.)

Wonwoo also learns that Mingyu has better reflexes than he does.

"How could you _do_ that?" he asks, appalled, reeling backwards like he's just been personally offended. "How could you like fruity flavours in your ice-cream?"

"Why wouldn't I - sherbets aren't too cloying and they wash down a meal really well. You're saying that about fruit like cherry jubilee isn't a fruit-based flavour."

"It's not," Mingyu insists, wringing his hands out in front of him. "It's vanilla-based and infused with cherries, so it stays rich."

 _What is this?_ He's tried to ask himself this time and time again. Talking about the past, about his life before all this, was something he'd expressly tried not to do, something that hurt him a lot more than it should. Yet, here they are, discussing something as mundane as desserts, and Wonwoo wonders if this isn't what they would be like if they had met as friends in a different world.

"Okay, but the most important question." Mingyu puffs out his chest, like he's about to deliver the ultimatum of the century. " _Kimchi jjigae_ or _soondubu jjigae_?"

" _Soondubu,_ without a doubt."

"That's terrible. You're terrible, hyung." Mingyu sniffs. "In what possible place would anyone not choose _kimchi_?"

"This one restaurant near my university, that's where. If only you'd tried it, then you'd know what I mean." It was one of those well-kept secrets, tucked away in an alley only the students knew about. Wonwoo had patronised it often for lunch, especially on days where he'd had an extended break between his classes, and suspected that the affable woman who owned the shop took enough of a fancy to him to give him extra meat without him asking. Wonwoo briefly ponders her fate. 

No immediate response comes - Mingyu is toying with the hem of his jacket, careful deliberation clear in the downturn of his mouth. One side seems to be winning. When he speaks again, it's with a bitter smile. "I would've liked that. I would've wanted to have a meal with you."

 _Me too,_ Wonwoo wants to say. The shopowner would've liked Mingyu more.

The noise is so faint, untrained ears wouldn't have been able to pick it up. But he's lived too long like this and he knows Mingyu has done the same, hours and days spent looking over their shoulders and subconsciously listening for the slightest sound to be out of place. Danger has its signs, ones they've trained themselves to learn. Quiet rustling, the sound of a boot sinking in the sand; Mingyu sends a knife flying in its direction before Wonwoo can even grip the hilt of the one in his pocket.

Like a miniature projectile, it zips in between two figures, both of whom sidestep the blade with agility that would put even wolves to shame. Trained agility. "Woah," one of them says, whistling his admiration, the one with faded blonde hair and a pretty, pretty face. "You've got a mean swing."

"Fuck," Mingyu curses under his breath. "You scared the fuck out of me."

Wonwoo places himself between both parties, aware of the peculiarity of a smaller person trying to protect a larger one. He tests the balance of the knife in his hand, poised to throw at any time. "Who're you?"

The blonde lifts up both hands in surrender, and his companion, fresh-faced and wide-eyed and certainly younger than all three of them, lays both his palms out flat in front of him. "I'm Jeonghan," he says, "and this is Chan."

  



	2. Paradise

Jeonghan is something of an enigma, disarming in disposition, looking at ease with the world and only mildly surprised that he's stumbled upon two healthy survivors in the middle of absolutely nowhere. He doesn't explicitly ask if they'd been exposed to the virus - the only way to truly tell is likely when it's too late - but Wonwoo knows his pleasant expression is a guise for guardedness, analysing the situation until he deems it safe.

Wonwoo knows because he's seen that expression too many times, reflected in the glass window of some store or a puddle of water.

With the ease of a host inviting his guests, or a manager interviewing potential candidates, Jeonghan says, "Let's sit." Wonwoo feels Mingyu's hand on his shoulder, looks back to see him nod lightly, lowers his knife (but keeps it in hand). Chan's gaze flickers down to it, but he doesn't say anything; instead, he makes the first move and lowers his bag to the floor, a suspiciously small drawstring pack for a wanderer.

They sit in a small circle on the floor, Wonwoo close enough for his knee to brush against Mingyu's thigh, a jumbo pack of cream crackers laid out between them like an odd placeholder for campfire. Questions run through his head like a marquee effect, the bright red and green LED lights that used to mark the pharmacy near his old home. _But who are you, really? How did you find us? Where are you from—_

"We're from Seoul," Jeonghan says, as if he'd been expecting the need to answer this first. His voice is tinkling, clear, soothing. "Well, Chan _moved_ to Seoul when he was a kid, at least. He's... He's like my little brother, I guess? We've been friends all our lives, and when I wasn't studying, I'd be babysitting him."

Chan pulls a face, indignant. "You weren't babysitting, you were babying."

Wonwoo can feel the change in current - of the air, of the conversation. It's easy to be drawn to casual banter, to fellow human beings, to normalcy, and the attraction rolls off Mingyu in waves. The tension before, wrapped in the gravity of their little circle, seems to have diffused somewhat.

"Where are you guys headed?" Chan asks, popping the last half of his cracker into his mouth.

Mingyu's eyes are on him, but not in the way that people who plead for answers would, not in the way he'd looked at Wonwoo that night he first asked. This gaze is strong, steadfast, and if it could speak, it might have said, _I would follow you anywhere._ Wonwoo looks away, at the grains of sand pooled around his feet. He settles for, "Why do you want to know?"

For someone so young, Chan possesses snark aplenty. "It's not like we meet a lot of people out here, and you don't wanna know?"

The slightest hint of satisfaction colours Jeonghan's voice when he speaks. Wonwoo feels strangely like he'd just passed a test, one he took involuntarily. "Hey, I get that you don't trust us yet - I don't expect you to. It's not like the environment out here actually breeds trust or anything like that," he says levelly. "But we've kind of been wandering about by ourselves too, looking for other people, so if you're also doing that, then let's just wander together."

Mingyu frowns, eyebrows knitting together. Wonwoo fights the urge to smooth them out with the pads of his fingers. "We might attract too much attention like that."

Jeonghan stands up and dusts off his cargo pants, hoisting his bag over his shoulder, Chan scrambling to follow. A tuft of his blonde hair has come loose from his ponytail, falling over one eye like an overgrown willow branch as he smiles breezily at them. "Four people protecting each other is better than just two."

Almost as if in an offering of peace, Chan reaches into his pack and pulls out an unopened pack of gummy bears, orange and yellow and green behind tacky red packaging. It reminds Wonwoo of the convenience store, the cartoon character greeting him with a wave every morning. "Here," he says, placing it on the ground next to the half-eaten box of crackers. "I have an extra bag, so you guys can have this one. Some sugar is good for you."

In any other time, the situation would've been laughable - a younger boy schooling him on nutrition with processed sweets. How tragic, that the feeling of being taken care of is so alien to him that he can only feel gratefulness for it, nodding at Chan and hoping that the message would carry across through the gesture.

"Our camp's on the other side of the building. Let us know what you think tomorrow."

One last wave from Chan, a cheery wink from Jeonghan, and they're gone, nothing to prove the encounter happened except the mild indent of footsteps, leftover food, and the creeping tendrils of hope in his heart.

Wonwoo makes certain they're out of earshot before he turns to Mingyu - he's thinking, too, the frown lighter but not gone, as if trying to decide something. He leans forward, quietly tears open the bag, places it in Wonwoo's lap. "They don't seem like bad people, hyung."

"Is it because they gave you gummy bears?"

A pretty laugh spills past Mingyu's lips. "No! I'm not the type to be bought over with sweets, okay."

He'd much rather they were alone - no one else to hear this sound of amusement but him, no one to share in the mirth and small comfort that had somehow come to him, no one to barge in on their time together. No one but Mingyu. "They're right, you know," Mingyu says.

"Right about what?"

"You saw the way they dodged my knife; they have to be good at fighting. Staying with them would mean there are two more people protecting you."

Simple words shouldn't be able to do that to him; simple words shouldn't be able to punch the air out of his lungs like this. They shouldn't be allowed to make him feel like he deserves some form of lasting solace from the demons that haunt his dreams, the ones he's convinced will come for him someday in punishment for Nayoung. "I don't need protection," he says, all bark and no bite.

"I know you don't," Mingyu answers calmly. "But I'd rather be safe than sorry."

The battle is won, and both of them know it. "I suppose I can learn more about them, to see if we can actually trust them," he concedes.

"You ended up trusting me. I'd say you have a pretty good judge of character."

 _You're different,_ Wonwoo wants to say. It's the truth, but he knows Mingyu will ask him how, and he doesn't have the answer tonight. So all Wonwoo does is angle his body to look at Mingyu, push his hair back over his forehead, and decides, "Fine. We'll do it - but we bolt the moment we feel something's up. Deal?"

"Mhm." Mingyu shifts so he's curled up against Wonwoo's side, forehead pressed to his neck, cheek against the scratchy surface of his new jumper, lips light against his skin, the ghosts of touch. He places a yellow gummy bear in Wonwoo's hand, banana, probably, and whispers, "Okay."

It feels chilly, so Wonwoo presses back.

  


⋆

  


The next morning, Jeonghan and Chan are packed and poised, perched on a broken stone wall in waiting, as if they had fully expected their offer to be taken up. When Mingyu delivers their decision, Chan smiles, wider than the night before, and exclaims, "Sweet! Now I won't have to deal with Jeonghan-hyung's bullying alone."

They come to an arrangement soon enough - by day, travelling together, and by night, a solid perimeter watch wherever they make camp, one pair on each side of the building to prevent any surprises.

Wonwoo spends a fair amount of time in step with Jeonghan, who seems completely unperturbed by the destruction of the world around him. Talk of his past comes easily to him - he was a florist in Seoul, part-timing through a philosophy degree, the only place he was willing to work because the shifts were flexible and he wasn't required to be on his feet all the time. "People weren't exactly lining up for flowers, unless it's Valentine's season." He laughs, then adds, "Roses were really fucking expensive."

Jeonghan must have been the classmate to have been popular with both the men and women, charming and mysterious and kind, even flirtatious sometimes. Wonwoo imagines he'd be smooth with his words, teasing yet dependable when people needed him to be, and has already proven to be far too sharp for Wonwoo's liking.

"So, Mingyu," Jeonghan ventures. "How long have you two been together?"

The connotation doesn't go unnoticed, but Wonwoo holds onto hope that that isn't what Jeonghan was really asking. "Don't know - about two months. Two and a half, maybe."

"He's a good kid. Chan likes him a lot. He may not look like it, but Chan has a knack for people, and I trust him."

A few steps ahead of them, Mingyu is jostling quietly with Chan, probably arguing about some stupid thing. The safety and familiarity reminds Wonwoo of time spent with his brother, but that was in a different time, a different life. Now, it reminds him of the way Mingyu's breath fans across his neck when they press up against each other - warm, comforting.

"I trust Mingyu," Wonwoo says absentmindedly.

Jeonghan hums in response. "I know."

  


⋆

  


Things fall into place after like the sheen of snow would during winter, as if the world had righted itself on its axis, learnt to spin properly again. Chan acts as their _de facto_ navigator, ahead of their little group, while the rest of them are content to follow - even Jeonghan, who seems to have a steadfast belief in Chan's intuition and sense of direction.

Suspicion is an old friend of Wonwoo's and it would sometimes rear its head, cynical that nothing has gone wrong with new company. But lately, it's learnt to lay low, almost dormant, pacified by the way Mingyu smiles whenever Jeonghan shares some scientific or poetic fact with him, or whenever he and Chan argue about trivial things like fashion and colour. He catches Wonwoo's eye sometimes, mid-smile, mid-conversation, the curve of his lips widening, and Wonwoo finds it difficult not to return the gesture.

Nighttime is his favourite, because he gets to have hushed conversation with Mingyu, their words and quiet laughter muffled by the dark of night and their brief brushes of skin. Wonwoo realises he's felt cold more often, even during the day, but he chalks it up to the fact that he's been around Mingyu so much, gotten so used to his gentility and his warm way with words, that all else pales in comparison.

The semblance of normalcy makes him feel like the world didn't just end.

"Do you mind if we scout ahead?" Jeonghan asks, lifting his hand to his eyes like a makeshift visor. The late afternoon sun is brutal today, especially so in this stopover town - no more than five blocks of shops and a gas station.

Wonwoo blinks. "Scout ahead? Why? We haven't needed to do that before."

Chan reaches up to pat Mingyu on the shoulder. "We just do it sometimes to keep ourselves in shape, go out to take a look and all a bit past the town. Will you be okay, hyungs?"

"Sure," he shrugs. "We'll look for a place to camp in the meantime, and then you guys can run supplies later."

They've only just rounded the corner before something snug wraps itself around his head; Wonwoo realises with a start that he's wearing a white baseball cap. (It reminds him of Nayoung, but he tries his best to shake the thought out of his head.) "Where'd you get this? It's fine, I don't need—"

With meticulous fingers, Mingyu fixes the wayward strands of hair under the bill of the cap, slowly, like a balm to the heat. "It's mine. I've had it with me all along, but you need it more." When his work is done, he pulls away, smiling gently. "I'll go look at what shops there are, and you find a good spot for us to sleep tonight, okay?"

Wonwoo watches him leave, ducking his head to hide the heat in his cheeks. If anyone asks, he would be loath to admit it, to confess his traitorous thoughts, but _for us to sleep tonight_ sends a pang of longing through his heart. It feels so domestic, so natural—

—a reminder of that safety should never be taken for granted.

He hears them before he sees them. Clumsy footsteps, hacking coughs, loud intelligible leering, strange cracking sounds. Five broken creatures emerge from the shadow of the alley nearest to the town square, torn clothing hanging off their bloodied limbs, hair thick with oil and rainwater, faces ash gray and unnatural - and all of them lunge at him at the same time.

Three crash into the edge of the stone fountain, howling as they struggle to regain their bearings. His pocket knives help him fend off the other two, stabbing them with practised, concise movements, the targets he'd etched out onto walls all those months ago resurfacing in his mind's eye. He lodges both knives in their chests, grunting with exertion as metal cuts through muscle and bone, feels the angry scratch of their nails against his skin, just short of drawing blood.

The others have gathered themselves and are moving towards him again, and injured or otherwise, five of them are too many for him to fight alone. Yet he tries all the same, tears his gun free of its holster, shooting one in the face, another in the chest, but then the weapon is knocked out of his hands, a bolt of pain shooting through his wrists—

A body barrels into the last creature, and Wonwoo hears a sickening thud when Mingyu hits the ground hard on his right shoulder. He messily stabs one as it tries to climb over him, shoving it out of the way and splitting its skull on the fountain's edge, and doesn't see the last attacker until it's a hair's breadth away.

Wonwoo puts two bullets through its head, breathing erratic and heavy as the wretched being falls onto the pavement, blood pooling swiftly under its body.

"You're hurt," he mumbles, the words barely making their way past his addled thoughts. Mingyu grits his teeth as he stands, the front of his shirt torn, a fine but deep gash across his chest, dripping thin globules of red. "Did they get you, you're hurt, fuck, I—"

Nothing could have prepared him for the way Mingyu's eyes flare angrily, as he bundles the hem of his shirt to press it against the open wound and staunch the bleeding. For the first time, in all the time Wonwoo had spent with him, his words take on an edge of fury, a burning scarlet flame. "What, you wanted to die so badly that you took on all of them alone?" he hisses, crossing the distance between them in long and purposeful strides. "Why didn't you call for me? Why did you..."

Mingyu lifts a hand to Wonwoo's face, thumbing the skin under his eyes. "Why did you scare me like that?" The sadness in his whisper chafes at Wonwoo's soul.

He lets the bloodied shirt fall, zips up his jacket to hide the wound to tend to later, and holds Wonwoo close; he smells of exertion and innocence and courage and pain. Wonwoo feels the crease in Mingyu's forehead as he rests his face in the crook of his neck. "Please... Don't ever do that again."

"You're hurt," he says again, quieter this time, clutching at Mingyu's jacket. It's warm. "They got to you because of me."

"They didn't. I accidentally cut myself in the tussle." Mingyu's mouth moves against his jaw, and he pulls back just enough to look at Wonwoo through his lashes. "I'm fine."

 _But I'm not._ His heart is pounding in his chest, his ears ringing, his entire being fraught with anger at himself for letting this happen. He wants to reach out to touch Mingyu, to memorise the lines of his face so he never forgets what he should protect, to push himself off the ledge he knows he's been toeing for weeks.

Footsteps sound against the pavement, and the moment is broken.

He pulls away just as Jeonghan and Chan come running, clear plastic sachets and test tubes in their hands, half-filled with soil. Wonwoo has half a mind to ask what that is, why they even have those, what they've been doing, cut through Chan's "we heard gunshots, shit", but Jeonghan takes one look at the gory remains by the fountain and the hard lines of panic in his eyes soften in understanding, especially when he sees the way Mingyu's body is angled towards Wonwoo's like he's unwilling to be parted.

"Let's get somewhere less open, yeah?"

  


⋆

  


They'd set up camp in the building closest to the edge of the town - an old community library with a gaping hole where the door should've been, but otherwise intact - so their departure the next morning can be swift. Jeonghan and Chan had offered to take up the raid runs themselves, claiming the first floor instead of sharing the second with them. ("You've had your fair share of attacking today," they'd said, but Wonwoo suspects the intention behind it was to give them some privacy.)

Mingyu unfurls his sleeping bag with one arm, keeping his right shoulder free of pressure, and the nylon has barely touched the tile before Wonwoo sits him down gently, unzipping his leather jacket to treat his wound. The attention catches him off-guard. "It'll dry on its own, hyung, you don't h—"

"Don't be silly." Wonwoo bristles at his attempted refusal, and for a moment, red-hot anger pulses beneath the surface of his thoughts. He takes the silence as an affirmation for him to come closer, scooting onto Mingyu's sleeping bag, their knees touching lightly. "Let me do it," he says placatingly, reaching into the inner compartment of his backpack for bottled water.

Cleaning the gash is painful, not only for Mingyu but for Wonwoo, to have to listen to his hisses of restrained agony. Red starts to wash away, bleeding almost pink on the cotton pads, revealing a thin incision where the blade had cut his skin. Bandages are limited, they always are, but Wonwoo doesn't care - he can try to find some in the next town over. Healing this is more important.

He covers the wound with gauze, the way he practised in a first-aid course in university, barely finished before Mingyu calls his name softly. "I mean it. Don't do that again. Promise me."

Wonwoo places a hand on his thigh, and wishes he had a different answer. Regret tinges the tone of is voice. "I can't. You know the world we live in - this shit can happen to us any day."

He'd steeled himself for insistence, frustration, perhaps even the slightest flare of anger again, but what he hears instead is a child's fear. (His fear.) "When I saw them jump you, I... that was terrifying. I was so scared."

By this time, Mingyu is close, too close, so close Wonwoo is almost whispering the words. "You faced one yourself in that hardware store; it can't be scarier than that."

As if of their own accord, he traces the edge of the gauze, sterile white against golden skin, down the planes of Mingyu's bare stomach, the pads of his fingers a feathery weight, then gets caught in Mingyu's hand. He holds it like he has no intention of letting go, sturdy fingers against Wonwoo's slender ones, and Wonwoo's heart lurches a little.

"I wasn't scared of them," Mingyu whispers back. "I was scared of losing you."

A pause, a deep breath. "Me too."

It's the truth - the blankness of his mind had bled out into an irrational terror, a fear of being alone again, of not ever learning how to experience warmth like this, of not waking up to Mingyu's smile, of not touching him, of returning to a time without him and of being so terribly _late_ that he never gets to tell him.

"Wonwoo." Mingyu hasn't ever called him just by his name, without honorifics; a shiver runs down his spine. "We've pretended for long enough, haven't we?"

"I wasn't pretending."

"Good."

Mingyu smells like pine needles and the sea, tastes like the sky and earth and _home_ , and Wonwoo feels like he's somewhere else - a new level of euphoria, past the clouds and his dreams, arching into Mingyu's hands and pressing back against his lips. Extensive experience in romance isn't something he's had, but his first kisses with his partners were always light, hesitant, a mutual understanding that they weren't yet ready to let go.

His first kiss with Mingyu is deep from the start, breath catching in his throat as their mouths move together, skin hot to the touch.

Wonwoo's heart hurts a little, and for a moment, he doesn't understand why. The pang persists. But then Mingyu reels him in by the waist until he's sitting flush in Mingyu's lap, hands clasped behind his neck and letting him lick the roof of his mouth, suck on his bottom lip slowly, breathing against his lips as his closed eyes slowly flutter open - and Wonwoo realises it isn't something as trivial as _hurt_.

It's the feeling of wanting someone, so helplessly and hopelessly that your body caves in.

  


⋆

  


Man is selfish, and Wonwoo doesn't think himself an exception. He would've liked to spend the night pressed against Mingyu that way, close enough for their bodies to become one, kissing him until he sees stars. He doesn't, but the morning isn't any less beautiful because of it - he wakes up to his untouched sleeping bag a few feet away, back pressed against Mingyu's chest and an arm around his waist.

Mingyu stirs, brow creased as he attempts to return to the bliss of sleep.

There aren't really many words fitting for the place Mingyu has in his heart, only the emotion it spawns - his reluctance to get up, to start the day, because it means he has to wait some hours before they can do this again; the embrace of solace; a fluttering sensation in his chest, so similar to happiness. Wonwoo runs his hand through Mingyu's hair - it's too long now, falling into his eyes, but he likes it.

"Hey," he says, the only greeting he can muster.

"I'm trying not to get up," Mingyu mumbles sleepily. "I want you to do this forever."

Wonwoo allows himself a laugh, and watches with a different kind of fascination as Mingyu's eyes open, big and brown. He disentangles Wonwoo's hand from his hair, presses a kiss to the inside of his palm. "Good morning." Even his voice takes on a new sharpness, and Wonwoo has to chide himself not to stare. (He doesn't win the argument.)

"It was a good night," he counters, and his hand is brought to Mingyu's mouth another time, for a longer kiss. "Mingyu, I have something I need to ask Jeonghan-hyung."

The blindness with which Mingyu says okay should be alarming - Wonwoo doesn't know if he quite deserves loyalty like that. He doesn't get to ask, doesn't get to think, because the next thing he knows, his heart is twinging again, one hand in Mingyu's hair and the other on his chest and mouth on his.

Wonwoo hears the familiar _crunch, crunch_ of their favourite cream crackers even as he's still descending the stairs, emerges on the first floor, brightly-lit, to see the opposite ends of a spectrum of calm. Jeonghan is sitting cross-legged on the checkered tile, poised as ever, like he's been expecting them; Chan fidgets nervously, like he knows what's coming.

"Morning," Jeonghan greets, looking up. "How was last night?"

 _Too sharp,_ Wonwoo reminds himself.

Mingyu subconsciously twists the hem of his shirt - black today, the gauze doing its part underneath the fabric. His reply is curt but not icy. "It was good. We figured some stuff out."

"Have you had those weapons for long?"

Jeonghan's question throws Wonwoo in for a loop - he'd hoped to have the upper hand in this conversation, to take them both by surprise and coax the truth from them. In hindsight, he should've known better than to think he'd ever be a step ahead of someone like this. "What?"

"The gun you used, and the knives. Have you had them for long?"

"I've had mine since the crisis began, and some of the knives we picked up along the way just after we met."

"Chuck them."

"What?"

Jeonghan gets up, patiently repeating himself, like a parent reminding a child of something they'd learnt only the hour before. "Dump your weapons, all of them."

"You want us to leave our weapons?" Wonwoo snorts. "No offence, but I came here to ask you - what were those things you were holding yesterday? The weird samples in the test tubes and the bags? How do you not have weapons at all and survived as long as you say you have, unless you're somehow just really lucky?"

Jeonghan and Chan exchange looks, the latter sighing as he gets to his feet with the pack of biscuits. He holds them out in offering, like they'll make his explanation easier to digest. "Who _are_ you?" Mingyu asks.

"We're scouts," Chan answers. "Sorry we didn't tell you earlier. We weren't sure if we could trust you either, and we wanted to make sure before we did. We're from The Colony."

Dizziness grips Wonwoo like an iron fist, clamping down on him out of nowhere. His blood turns to ice, the air in his lungs to stone; it's not because of the revelation, he'd figured they were keeping their identities from him anyway, but because the name isn't unfamiliar. Nayoung had mentioned it once, whispered it to him just before they'd fallen asleep, as if uttering it any louder would bring retribution to them both - the survivor's myth.

The amused tilt of Jeonghan's lips is telling. "So you've heard of it."

"Well, I haven't," Mingyu says. "What the hell is that?"

Jeonghan lets out a deep breath, hands in his pockets like he's about to tell a story. "A survivor's haven. Long story short - and I mean really short - we've built a fortress to live in, powered by technology that was funded shortly after the first wave of the non-human epidemic strain." He gestures to himself, then to Chan. "We're scouts sent to look for signs of life and pick up soil samples along the way for us to see what's still fertile."

"How could you be a fortress if you're just randomly taking things back in? What if they're infected?"

"That's a lot of questions." There is no vigilance in Jeonghan's voice this time, only surrender and mystery and the slightest hint of fun. As otherworldly as The Colony sounds, as it's always sounded, Wonwoo begins to believe it might actually be real, if only because he's started to understand why Jeonghan was the perfect scout - he has the skill set for it. "Chuck your weapons first - we'll get you new ones and explain everything when we get back."

The bell above the door tinkles when Jeonghan pushes it open, as clear and bright as the sky outside. "What - you thought Chan was leading the pack for fun? He's been bringing you in the direction of home."

  


⋆

  


With every passing moment, it becomes increasingly clear to Wonwoo that Jeonghan and Chan had been deliberately stringing them along at a slow pace, winding through unnecessary towns under the guise of wandering to buy time. The terrain changes substantially and quickly, the landscape beginning to thin, dotted less by buildings than swathes of land, some burnt black and dyed red, others still pristinely green.

Just as the sun touches the horizon, the hour of twilight soft on their faces, they come to a sizeable mountain range. At first glance, there's nothing special about it, nothing out of place that anyone would stop to take a second look at. Nestled in a dip in the foot of the mountains, however, glinting ever so slightly, is a large transparent structure.

Wonwoo realises with a start that it's an arch, a makeshift checkpoint, made entirely of what appears to be hard plastic. Mingyu's hand tightens instinctively in his, and he doesn't need to look to know they're similarly blown away. This is the fantasy of science fiction enthusiasts, graphics right out of the video games he used to play.

"New arrivals," Jeonghan announces to the two women by the entryway. Both of them press a button on the cuff of their gloves, and the rock face lifts to reveal a dark tunnel, glowing gently by yellow and blue light.

Chan gestures for them to follow, and for an irrational moment, his heart thumps loudly against his ribs. He braces himself for a beep, anything of the sort, although a small part of him knows that the arch is merely a structure and not a mechanism - something that would allow only one of them to pass for whatever sordid reason.

But his fears are unwarranted, nothing comes to pass, and he enters the mildly damp tunnels with Mingyu's hand still in his.

The mountain itself is an anomaly in nature - artificially hollowed, tunnels snaking like tendrils into unknown depths, small caves fashioned into compartments and rooms behind all manner of doors, from plastic to curtains to mismatched quilts. Its people are a greater anomaly, and Wonwoo can hardly do much else than gawk as they wind through the hallways. Some sit in meeting rooms, huddled together and scribbling on the transparent surface of the walls in marker, others eating off plastic trays or carting boxes on their shoulders. They pass the occasional lone ranger, sifting through documents as they walk, one even eating a piece of fresh bread.

_Bread?_

That shouldn't even be possible.

Jeonghan rounds at last into an immense cave. For all fashions and purposes, it appears to be the main hall, with long tables and screens and the muted mill of a small crowd. Two worlds become one in this space - the old Romantic ideal of an organic people, living communal lives disconnected from the world, yet pulsing with technology and all the modern salvation it has to offer. "What the hell," he hears Mingyu mumble under his breath.

"New arrivals," Jeonghan repeats, clapping his hands together. Wonwoo forces himself past the confusion and wonder, focusing just long enough to realise the whole room of ten-odd people are staring at them, particularly three men at the edge of a long desk.

"Didn't expect to see you so soon," one of them says in surprise. "And with company, too."

"Yeah, well, plans change, hyung," Chan says resignedly, his backpack landing on the smooth surface of the desk with a muffled _thunk_.

Jeonghan turns to address them, pointing to each of them in turn. "Wonwoo, Mingyu - these are our leaders; I guess you can call them department heads, because they're in charge of their own areas here."

"This is Soonyoung, head of logistics and personnel." Soonyoung is a beacon of childlike excitement, twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin and a head of red hair, although the black of his roots are starting to take over. He waves at them like a long-time acquaintance would at a party, greeting loud and boisterious.

Restrained and quiet, the boy to his right is almost the complete opposite. He has piercing eyes, the kind that Wonwoo would be loath to cross. "Jihoon is head of research and development; he kind of keeps this place alive and makes sure nothing screws up."

"And this is Seungcheol, head of... I don't know, heads?"

Seungcheol's charismatic, commanding gaze wilts away so suddenly, it almost gives Wonwoo whiplash. "I got such a lame intro, and for a first impression too! You couldn't have done better with that?"

Human interaction is a fickle thing - months ago, he would've given up a great deal for a companion, to absolve himself of the guilt over Nayoung's passing. He'd met one, then two, and now more people than he'd ever been prepared for, the familiar synapse of panic bubbling beneath his skin. "How is this possible?" The questions spill forth from him like a dam unfettered, cutting through the banter (what friends do). "How do you have electricity here? Screens, tech? The lines should've been dead—"

"They are," comes a mild-mannered voice. Two other men look up from the table next to them, blueprints rolled out and held in place by pieces of hewn rock.

"What? Then how do you guys have water? Food? I saw bread— How did you build this?"

The man laughs, soft like a nightingale. "You have a lot of questions. Can't tell you the real secret, or we'll have to kill you." Wonwoo realises that his speech is slightly accented, and tinted with the same kind of mellow amusement that Jeonghan has. "I'm Jisoo, and this is Junhui, although he goes by Jun, really."

Mingyu speaks up. "And what are you heads of?"

"You could say we're retired," Junhui replies. "We used to be heads of money before the world kind of went to shit."

"How much did Jeonghan tell you?"

"Only that we had to get rid of our weapons."

Jihoon raises his eyebrows at the answer, holding off only when Jeonghan steps in. "They've had them since the epidemic broke out and nothing happened, so, you know," a vague swing of his hands, "I figured they were clean."

"Sit." Seungcheol's order rings with the finality of a seasoned veteran, but is fuzzy around the edges, like he's trying to soften the blow. "It can be overwhelming at the beginning."

He gestures to himself, and then Jihoon and Soonyoung. "We were working as part of the research team that was trying to figure the very first wave out - back when it only affected animals. I was on the board of directors and I wanted funding in case there was a strain that infected humans, but nobody really wanted to listen." Of course, Wonwoo wants to snort; his mother used to talk about the politicisation of science all the time. "So I asked Jisoo and Jun to help me - they were the sons of foreign research conglomerates and institutions based in Seoul."

Seungcheol lifts his arm, sweeping it in a circle around him. "This was in the works for a long time, and as you can see by the size, this place and the plan was initially tailored for a lot more people. Jihoon, Soonyoung, and I were in a remote base when the crisis broke out - we did what we could, and brought whatever was left of us here to escape."

The survivor's myth was true.

"You guys brought back samples of soil from the outside. It could be infected." Wonwoo is surprised at the clarity in his voice (and attributes it to their clasped hands, his and Mingyu's, a sharing of energy).

Jihoon answers him levelly, and Wonwoo knows he isn't lying - the confidence he exudes is that of someone backed by empirical evidence and hours of research. He knows, because Jihoon sounds so much like his mother's friends as they presented their findings to their colleagues. "It's not. People say the virus was airbone because no one really figured out how people got it, right? Some people were infected, and others weren't. Our R&D cracked the code - the final strain, the one that hit us, is transmitted through metal. It's the parasite's dream; they'll never run out of metal to attach themselves to, and it's always in close proximity to human flesh if they want it."

At Wonwoo's alarmed gaze - he'd had those weapons for _months_ \- Jihoon hurries to finish his sentence. "Not all metal, so don't worry. It's not a given that they inhabit any metal they see, or if they infect every human host that comes into contact with it. Direct access to the bloodstream will probably heighten chances, but that's it." His eyes flicker up to Jeonghan and Chan. "That's why they told you to chuck your weapons - it's always better to be safe than sorry. Our arsenal is specially-designed and made of plastic; everything's either plastic or silicon here."

"How do you get them? The heat you'd need, the materials..."

"You leave the heat and the machinery to us," Junhui says, a deeper, darker air of mystery about him. "But material - we're not exactly short on sand for silicon."

Jihoon points to a shaft in the ceiling, as if he can see past the rock. "We'd been stocking up on water since we started planning this, and our scouts bring as much back as they can when they're out, but we mainly run rainwater through a filter," he explains. "And our electricity is powered by custom solar panels that we made ourselves."

"Geez, guys," Soonyoung chirps. "I didn't know I was going for a science convention today. That's the most I've heard us tell newcomers in like, one sitting. How is your brain not fried yet?" He addresses the last question to Wonwoo, spinning a chubby marker in his hands.

Before Wonwoo can refute - his head _is_ close to spinning - Jeonghan speaks, gently offers him the same sort of ultimatum he did that night they first met. The lilt in his voice tells Wonwoo he already knows the answer. "You don't have to stay. Chan and I brought you here so you can see, but if you'd rather live out there, you're welcome to."

Wonwoo turns to look at the only person who could convince him to leave, the person he would weather the sand and storms and sun for if he was asked. Mingyu is thumbing the skin on the back of his hand, all the affirmation he needs to know they've come to the same decision.

"I said I was distrustful, not stupid," he sighs. "We'll stay. Thanks for having us."

"Oh, right, my turn!" Soonyoung leans forward, palms pressed flat against the desk, using his arms to keep him balanced as his feet leave the floor in a swinging motion. "We live off a system of labour division here. So what're you good at?"

"Whatever you do that needs hands." Mingyu shrugs. "I can build things and fix them too."

Wonwoo speaks to the room at large but tries to address Jihoon in particular. "I used to be an agricultural science student."

"Food and plant science? Wow, fuck, we're always short on cultivation experts so you're _definitely_ with me."

"Sweet," Soonyoung says, clapping his hands together once in dismissal. "But we'll do that tomorrow, okay, because it's close to dinnertime and I'm starving." He turns to Wonwoo and Mingyu, spreads his arms wide, a little like an eagle introducing its younglings to flight. "For now - welcome home."

  


⋆

  


For a person leading a post-apocalyptic colony, mankind's final resistance against extinction, Soonyoung is jovial, jumping from one topic to the next as he gives them a short tour on the way to their rooms. "Communal showers are over here... and this is kind of a gym," he says, waving at the entry to another cavern. "I mean, you can't expect cool things like treadmills and weights and shit, but if you wanna work out, this is the place you go."

But he's nice - genuinely so - and Wonwoo imagines he was the kind of person to have been a handful in his class, admonished and loved in equal parts by his teachers who were as exasperated with his restlessness as they were charmed by his wit and warmth. Trust is difficult for Wonwoo to come by, through no one's fault but his own. It still feels strange, being here. It reminds him of what used to be, and what still can be.

"We usually have dinner together every night; you can casually ask Seokmin to make something you want, and he might, if he has enough ingredients on hand. Oh, but you haven't met Seokmin yet... and you still have some people to meet tomorrow, but!" He stops abruptly with a flourish of his hands, sounding like a magician about to reveal his last trick. The cave they've come to is large and circular, branching out into many smaller corridors. "Here we are - R&D rooms are down here, and builders share with engineering this way—"

Wonwoo twines his fingers with Mingyu's. The fit is perfect, still. "We'll save you a room and share."

Soonyoung blinks owlishly at him. "You don't have to. We have more rooms than people, and the beds are a bit small for both your sizes." Then his gaze drops to their hands, eyes widening as understanding belatedly dawns on him, and the raucousness melts away into a gentle smile. "Oh, okay. Yeah, sure, just make sure you keep it down, if, y'know."

He wriggles his eyebrows, shoots them a coquettish wink, and is off on his way, humming a song under his breath.

Five seconds pass, then ten, then fifteen. It's as if the gears in his head are recalibrating.

Wordless yet calm, Mingyu tugs on their hands, steering him in the direction of the R&D tunnel that Soonyoung had indicated. Relief washes over Wonwoo at the change of pace, a sensation he's certain Mingyu feels as well - their lives, their hopelessness, their chances, had all been upturned on their heads in the span of a day.

The corridor is sparse, a repetition of room after room that would've been right at home in a dystopian young adult film where society, mindless and controlled by a higher order, live without questioning the rules of their world. This is anything but - it's solace, the normalcy and mundanity they hadn't dared to dream of for fear of disappointment.

Ten rooms - even numbers to his left, odd to his right.

"When's your birthday?" Mingyu's question is abrupt, but not jarring. He never is.

"Huh? July."

Room #7 is taken; a piece of paper pasted hastily to the door, crooked slightly, reads _Vernon_ , with _Hansol_ scrawled next to it in brackets and messy _hangeul_. "Tough luck," Wonwoo chuckles. "When's yours?"

"April."

They don't discuss any more dates - room #4 is empty - and Wonwoo has to duck his head to stop himself from smiling. It had been an endearing thing, to think that Mingyu would decide a dull matter like living arrangements by referring to a subject so sentimental.

Behind the translucent door is a small room with a single low bed, a tiny vent for air, two boxes for storage, and little else. They set their backpacks down by the wall, Wonwoo's shoulders aching in relief when the weight lets up on him, and Mingyu lets the thick black curtain attached above the door to unfurl and fall. A makeshift lock, to compensate for the transparency of the plastic doors, and to shadow the room's inhabitants from prying eyes.

Wonwoo is acutely aware of the proximity, the gradual and unresolved tension in the air. They're alone for the first time in hours, soft and silent and warm, no questions, no answers, no one but them. He looks up to see Mingyu watching him; the intensity of his stare razes at Wonwoo's skin.

"How's your wound?" The words leave him no louder than a wisp.

Mingyu doesn't answer, doesn't so much as regard the words, only strides up to him and pulls him in by the waist until their bodies are pressed flush against each other's, his free hand pressed to Wonwoo's jaw as their mouths move together. Mingyu's mouth, his hands, his skin, his breathing, _Mingyu_ is intoxicating, and Wonwoo can do little more than fist the fabric of Mingyu's shirt, just above the waistline of his jeans, and kiss back.

"I've been wanting to do that all day," Mingyu whispers against his lips, forehead light against his. He noses briefly at Wonwoo's cheek, breath leaving him in a deep sigh as his eyes flutter shut.

Slowly, _slowly,_ the speed of a mortal man trying to commit magic to memory, Wonwoo's hand travels upward, past his chest and shoulders and the curve of his neck to settle in his hair. Mingyu's hand tightens against his cheek, like he's fighting a losing battle to rein himself in. _This is real,_ his head tells him.

Wonwoo tugs lightly at Mingyu's hair, and hears the string between them snapping in two. "Then keep doing it," he whispers back.

Mingyu does, again and again, and Wonwoo presses infinitely closer, willing himself to calm the raging sense of vertigo in his veins.

  


⋆

  


Falling asleep the night before had been no mean feat. He'd gotten accustomed to rock and tar and sand in his sleeping bag, the smooth layers of nylon and polyester the only thing protecting him from the forces of nature, his back digging uncomfortably into hard tile or bumpy rock. The bed they had now feels too soft in comparison, the sturdiness of another body next to him alien yet pleasant.

"You're thinking," Mingyu had said, matter-of-factly, lifting Wonwoo's chin with careful fingers.

His eyes had sparkled in the dark - what a stupidly teenage thing to have thought, but Wonwoo would blame it for the way he seemed to have lost his way with words. "About you."

Mingyu had laughed, kissed the crown of his head, took his hand and laid it to rest between their bodies. "Think about me tomorrow; right now, you need to sleep."

Mingyu is a vessel of impossible warmth, Wonwoo had learnt, when he'd pressed his face into the crook of Mingyu's neck and felt radiance burst from his chest. This is what happiness feels like, he realises, relieved that he hasn't quite forgotten. _I will; I'll think about you tomorrow, the day after, and all the days after that, too._

He holds true to his word, the thought lingering in his head long after Mingyu turns the corner with a little wave back at him the next morning, whisked away by Soonyoung and the promise of a red bean bun. (Being without him is strange; he doesn't remember what it's like to be alone anymore.) They'd agreed to familiarise themselves with their respective departments and report for work, so Wonwoo wanders into the common area to find Seungcheol and Jihoon perched on a round desk, a tiny cup of coffee each, steaming their noses.

"Good night?" Seungcheol asks offhandedly, but the telltale signs of a grin belies the teasing in his voice. "Soonyoung tells me you're sharing a room with Mingyu."

"We... yeah." Jihoon hands him a cup of his own and a bun just like the one Soonyoung had carted around; he takes them both with an appreciative 'thanks'.

"Did you know him before the epidemic?" The question is muffled from behind the rim of his mug, and Wonwoo almost tells him he should finish taking that sip before he asks anything else. The sticky brown of coffee wouldn't look too good on Seungcheol's white tee.

He shakes his head. "No, we only met after. We met by accident when I was camping out in some town."

"That's a good thing, you know," Seungcheol says quietly. For the first time, Wonwoo is given a glimpse of him as a leader - the person all these survivors looked to for guidance, even the other founding members. He possesses a depth of understanding, the curse of one born to lead, and a curse he carries well, all things considered. "Not many people can say that. Lots of us lost love in the chaos, all the death and panic and separation. I mean, I remember it like it was yesterday."

(Wonwoo looks at the curve of his eyes, and tries to puzzle together who he'd lost.)

Seungcheol smiles at him. "But you found love - that's something else."

_Oh._

In truth, things had happened too quickly, so quickly that Wonwoo hadn't had time to even put a name to what he felt. Love?

"Okay, enough bullying first thing in the morning. Jeonghan-hyung's subtle interrogation methods are rubbing off on you." Jihoon steps in firmly, turns to Wonwoo just as the last of the bun vanishes into his mouth. Bread was certainly something he'd taken for granted; the taste of spongy flour and the subtle sweetness of the red bean have never been more welcome. "Ready?"

  


⋆

  


Blue, silver, tinges of white - the cavern that the research and development team calls home is less of cavity in the rock than it is the blood, sweat, and tears of science. Machines made out of silicon taper out into wires strewn across the floor, a strangely clear breed of fibre optics, extending into the nooks and crannnies of the room too dark for Wonwoo to see.

When they arrive, Jisoo is already there, sleeves rolled up to his elbow as he pores over some sheets of paper, a picture of elegance even in the dim blue glow of the room. "If it isn't our new best and brightest," he greets amiably, nodding at them in acknowledgement as he reaches over to a platter of cooled _dalgona._ "Help yourself if you like. Slept well?"

"Yeah, thanks." Wonwoo tries not to think about the simmering heat he'd felt whenever he'd touched Mingyu in the dark.

Jihoon pops one into his mouth, hopping into a worn-out swivel chair that Wonwoo recognises to be informally his property. "We already have most of our main issues figured out - electricity, and as you know, water is in short supply, but there's nothing much we can do about that besides being careful with it and conserve as much as we can."

He pushes over a chair for Wonwoo to sit in. "We're always looking for ways to grow our own food more effectively, though, and we've been working on sustainability for a while, so we'll put you on food R&D, since that's your area of specialty," Jihoon finishes.

Wonwoo flashes him a thumbs up. He'd have to dig deep to remember what he'd learnt in university, but it's a small price to pay for this. "What else are you working on?" he asks, motioning towards the papers in Jisoo's hands.

"You really _are_ a curious one." Jisoo has an unassuming laugh, the kind that often comes across as sheepish, if only to set others at ease. It's a pretty sound, he muses. Jisoo and Jihoon exchange looks, all the words unsaid in the air between them, but ultimately come to the conclusion that Wonwoo can be trusted. "There's few enough of us as it is, so I suppose I can tell you. Heads' up - we haven't told the rest of The Colony yet, so it's just us, the leaders, and a couple of others who know."

Jisoo slides the papers over to him. Diagrams and equations are pencilled in between the lines, up till the margins on some pages, hashed and rehashed to change numbers and add notes. "At our last internal meeting, we agreed that we need to think about long-term sustainability, and we can't just rely on judgment calls like we have all this time - like we did with you - if we're really serious about it," he says. "So we've been building tech that'll help us read body heat; we're almost done, actually. We found out that those who're infected have internal temperatures lower than that of normal human beings."

"You did this all on your own?" Wonwoo hears his own surprise in every syllable. Even with Jisoo and Junhui's cryptic funding, there really is only so much two people should be able to do.

"God, no," Jisoo says. "But our regulars aren't the best at keeping time."

As if on cue, the heavy velvet of the curtain parts with a swish to reveal two boys and a girl. Wonwoo is certain one pair are siblings, their sharp features reminding him of the poster children he used to see on luxury European magazines; the other boy has bangs so long they're covering one of his eyes. Jihoon clicks his tongue. "There they are. What happened to the morning meet, guys? It's closer to noon right now."

"You try staying up until ass o'clock looking at your samples and tell me if you can still make it to morning meetings!" The girl jests in fluent Korean that surprises Wonwoo, coming up to crowd the table with her brother and letting Jihoon ruffle her hair.

Jisoo lets the flurry die down before he launches into the round of introductions. "This is Sophia and her twin, Vernon - they were my friends back in the States - and that's Minghao, who's from China. As you can see, this department is very... outsourced," Wonwoo smiles at the word, "and Jihoon used to be grossly outnumbered. I mean, he still is, but at least now that you're here, the scales have tipped just slightly."

 _Vernon_ \- he remembers the name from the night before, the owner of the room Mingyu had wanted. He's young, with an easygoing gait, a cheery smile that he gives Wonwoo from across the table before telling Jisoo that Junhui would be with the planters' team today to work out a new initiative for produce.

He feels the stretch of his lips, the mild effort it takes for his cheeks to lift, and he has to look away and pick at the corner of the desk as the others exchange pleasantries. His chest feels light, the white noise in his head slowly morphing into a soft fuzz.

"It takes a while." Minghao sidles up next to him unexpectedly, raises a hand for him to shake. His speech is slightly stilted, but they ring true with the sage wisdom of a person who's been in his place before. "The noise is always weird if you've been alone for a long time."

"I like it. It's nice," Wonwoo admits. _It's nice to maybe start feeling normal again._

  


⋆

  


Normal would take some getting used to, something that doesn't go unnoticed by his new colleagues (his new friends). Jisoo had seen how exhausting socialising can be for someone who hasn't had to put up with extended periods of it, and insisted he excuses himself early for rest.

Setting a bottle of water and an insulated tiffin carrier down on the counter of his brand new workspace, Jisoo tells him kindly, "You should go back and rest. I had Vernon bring up tonight's dinner in advance for you." He gestures towards the container. "Two servings of seaweed soup and rice; should be piping hot for another two hours or so. Go share it with Mingyu and take the rest of the day off."

Wonwoo doesn't know what to say, the words tumbling over each other in his head. "Thank you," he says, and hopes against hope that the simple reply can still convey the depth of his gratitude.

"You're very welcome. When you feel more comfortable with us, you don't have to be so formal - you're home now." Jisoo smiles breezily, tapping the desk once, twice, before spinning around to return to his own workspace.

Wonwoo had wanted to say _yes, I will, thank you,_ but also _yes, this is a house but it's only a home when Mingyu is here with me._ As true as it is, it's a horribly rude thought, so Wonwoo swallows it down and instead replaces it with a note to meet and thank Seokmin for the first hot meal he's about to have in months.

He has half a mind to look for Mingyu, but he doesn't know where the builders or planters are, doesn't even know if Mingyu is with them, and he'd rather not be stranded in a labyrinth of dark, dank tunnels, so he returns to their room. The bed dips to accommodate him, and he waits, fiddling with the four-leaf clover pin on his jacket.

Mingyu returns with a drawstring bag slung over his shoulder, clinking like windchimes with every step he takes. Wonwoo isn't sure how to greet him when he barrels through the doors, excitement rolling off him in waves - this feels so domestic, so _natural_ that it frightens him a little. But Mingyu is fire, instantly lighting up the room and burning the last of worries away into smoke, hot and intense and brilliant, when he presses his lips against Wonwoo's.

The most characteristic giggle falls from his mouth, and it makes Wonwoo smile. "How was your day?" Mingyu asks.

"Lonely," Wonwoo mumbles back. "Didn't have you with me."

"Mm, really?" He bites the inside of his cheek, wills himself not to make a sound. It's difficult, with the way Mingyu is mouthing at his neck, teeth grazing against the pale flesh. "Maybe I should ask for a department transfer."

"On your second day? I don't think that's much good for business."

They operate in linear succession, a process of comfort - Wonwoo brings his face back up, sucks on his bottom lip, gasps quietly as the grip on his waist tightens. But then he also bumps their noses together, a feathery light touch, and watches as the heat between them dissipates under the force of Mingyu's smile. "Tell me how it went. Where did Soonyoung drag you off to?"

The corners of Mingyu's lips edge upward into a smile so blinding that Wonwoo's heart aches. He upends the drawstring bag, all manner of tools falling out onto the bed like coloured plastic toys. "I helped out with the gardening - or farming? - first; they have this _huge_ room that's kind of like a greenhouse where they grow stuff like potatoes. It's so pretty; the ceiling is made of clear plastic for sunlight to reach in!"

He lifts one of the tools off the bed, a plastic screwdriver with a bright blue rubber handle, placing it in Wonwoo's hands. It's light yet sturdy, and it makes him wonder anew about the sort of technology Jisoo and Junhui had managed to fund here. If the world was still as it used to be, governments would try desperately to outbid each other for technology like this.

"Then Soonyoung took me to engineering, where they build pretty much everything they need. I helped them fix a few things, a heater that they'd been putting off since the spring because they don't really need it right now." Mingyu beams proudly, looking down at the tools scattered on the bed. "They gave me a set of my own to keep."

Wonwoo returns the screwdriver, gently placing it on top of a wrench. "That's nice."

"I know. The people here are really sweet. I..." Mingyu trails off, playing with Wonwoo's fingers, then threading them together. "I didn't think we'd ever find a place like this."

"Mingyu," he begins softly. "Are you happy here?"

The words leave Mingyu in one breath. "I will be as long as you're with me."

"Of course."

"Promise?"

He didn't think Mingyu had needed to ask, but if words aren't enough, Wonwoo would have to think of some other way to tell him. He presses a lingering kiss to the spot just beside his ear, his cheek, his eyelids, his jawline. "Always."

Mingyu opens his mouth, like he wants to say something, like he's searching for the words. They never come, and all he does is rest his forehead against Wonwoo's shoulder, mouthing at the skin just past the neckline of his shirt. Wonwoo figures he likes doing that, strokes his hair in return, and doesn't ask him what it is he meant to say.

Dinner can wait.

  


⋆

  


Time passes this way, an hour, a day, then a week, like a new stream flowing downhill.

Mornings are like the source, bubbling with fresh water. He'd wake up, attempt to extricate himself from their tangled sheets and Mingyu's arms, gently shake him awake because he's far from a morning person, reluctant to leave the refuge of sleep. Breakfast is either in the common area with whoever happens to be there, or taken with him on a tray to the R&D facility if work is pressing. (Jisoo calls them 'team innings', and Wonwoo has no idea if that's a baseball reference or just something he made up.)

Afternoons are the stream channels - swift and relentless, yet calm to experience from the banks. He's given express permission to oversee research on their soil samples and growth methods, often sharing Junhui's workspace and scribbling notes on the clear surface for him to refer to at a later time. Sophia brings coffee, Vernon emotional support, Jihoon and Minghao sarcatically fond banter, Jisoo a pristine, translucent gun.

"Everyone gets one here," he says. "For protection, and because we trust each other."

If breakfast is a loud affair, then dinner would bring the roof down on many houses - Seungcheol makes it a point for everyone to eat together. It's here that he meets Seokmin for the first time, a character as boisterous as Soonyoung who's taken to yelling as he slides plates across the long table. Despite this, he's exceedingly sweet, the kind of person to set others completely at ease with mild but enjoyable conversation. Mingyu introduces him to Seungkwan also, a junior member of the engineering department who has an affinity for tangerines and claims it's the thing he misses the most about the world at large. Wonwoo likes him, likes them all - they feel like a family.

Nighttime is the mouth of the stream as it blends out into the sea, stretches infinite along the horizon, white mist and silver lines and the feeling of reckless freedom under the blanket of muted darkness. It's his favourite time of the day - was and still is - if only because he gets to withdraw into a silly blanket fortress they've made as he and Mingyu talk about their day, leave butterfly kisses on the pads of his fingers and the column of his neck, push Mingyu into the sheets and kiss him senseless.

For once, Wonwoo learns that he doesn't have to look over his shoulder anymore, doesn't have to fortify his defences and sharpen his knives and sleep lightly. For once, he is safe, and for once, he understands what it's like to start anew.

The realisation comes to him as easily as the stream falling out into the wide world. It isn't how they write it in the novels, sudden like a clap of thunder. Perhaps it's because he's known for a long time and never had the luxury of thinking about it, but it's gradual, slow, dawning on him like the sun over a new day.

And how fitting it is, he decides, when he stands at the doorway to the greenhouse, watching the sun at work.

He sees Mingyu jostling with Seungkwan and Junhui, holding a plastic shovel in the air as he exclaims something unintelligible in the distance. He's a son of the earth, tinged bronze in the light, and Wonwoo decides to himself that this is where Mingyu belongs - with nature.

"Are you slacking off, new best and brightest?"

The voice takes him by surprise (as does the nickname, stolen from Jisoo, no doubt) it's one he hasn't heard in two days. Jeonghan strides up to him, arms crossed over his chest, watching the same scene unfold in front of him. "I swear, they're all like, five or something."

Wonwoo laughs. "I'm on a break. Did you have a good run out?"

"We didn't go far; it was more of a trip to secure our perimeters than actual scouting like when we met you. Otherwise we'd be gone for weeks at a time."

"I see."

"Do you like it here?"

"I do. We both do. Thanks for bringing us here, even though you could've just left us out there. You gave us a chance at new lives."

"Don't mention it."

The silence between them is comfortable now, a far cry from their journey before The Colony. Time works in strange ways. Jeonghan's voice is the gentlest Wonwoo's ever heard it when he speaks again. "You love him, don't you? Mingyu."

Wonwoo takes a deep breath. Mingyu catches his gaze and waves animatedly at him from across the room; his hair is coppery brown in the daylight.

"Yes."

  


⋆

  


He tells Mingyu as much that night, breathes it into the space between their mouths - no fanfare, nothing but the press of his skin, wet lips, looking up at him through fine lashes.

Mingyu's hands come up to his face, and Wonwoo is reminded of the night he'd spoken about his past, the first brick to fall from the wall he'd thought impenetrable, Mingyu on his knees and silently begging for entry and chipping away at his defences. Maybe that was when he'd first fallen for this man - an act of surrender and sacrifice as he laid his soul bare.

"That's not fair," Mingyu whispers. "I was supposed to say that first."

Wonwoo threads his fingers in Mingyu's hair. "Looks like you don't get to win every fight, Kim Mingyu."

The eyes he pulls back to look into are dark, heady, like freefalling through the galaxy. "Say it again," Mingyu almost growls, teeth working on Wonwoo's bottom lip, the corner of his mouth, the line of his jaw. "Tell me again."

"I love you."

"Again."

"I love you."

"Again."

"I love you."

  


⋆

  


Afterglow is, Wonwoo realises, in its truest form not the aftereffects of sex, but the aftermath of loving and being loved. He's certain he's right when he arises the next morning, limbs lighter than they've ever been, Mingyu sprawled out messily on the bed next to him, their sheets pooled around his waist.

They still have a bit of time before they have to leave the drowsiness of dawn, and Wonwoo spends the minutes sending a silent prayer to whatever deity was watching over him, to thank them for sparing him their most beloved star. He brushes Mingyu's hair out of his face, tucking the wayward strands behind his ear, revelling in the way his skin seems to glow from within. It's as if all time has stopped for him to savour the moment; the planets have aligned for him, turning his lonely little sphere towards the sun, and how beautiful it is, to be in its warmth and caress for as long as it burns bright.

"Good morning, my love," he whispers, leaning down to kiss the shell of Mingyu's ear.

Wonwoo is reminded that Mingyu is an exceedingly talented man - his hands hot and tongue hotter as he licks into Wonwoo's mouth, dressing him one item of clothing at a time. "We're going to be late," he chides, breathless, as Mingyu ties his belt with fingers that roam too close to his waistband.

"We already are," he mumbles, smiling into the press of Wonwoo's mouth against his.

They have all the time in the world.

When they do manage to leave their rooms, prepared for another day ahead, Wonwoo discovers they're not late - for some reason, the common area is as crowded as it is during dinner. By this time, it should be empty, save for the occasional late riser or groups meeting over work material. Today, it's only their friends - the leaders, Wonwoo's colleagues, and Mingyu's.

Approaching the table, he asks, "What's the occasion? Why's everyone here?"

Chan lets out a miffed noise when Mingyu ruffles his hair, and gives Wonwoo a wave in lieu of a 'good morning'. "I thought you'd know! Jihoon-hyung said R&D finished something up at 3:00am and that he didn't get any sleep, but that it was worth it."

"It's finally fucking done," Jihoon hisses through gritted teeth, the tone of a man who has yet to have caffeine in the morning, but Wonwoo can hear the satisfaction in every word, the pride of a scientist who'd slogged for an accomplishment. "The thing I told you about, the one for body heat."

Mingyu's ears perk up at his words as they both come closer, the crowd parting for them to stand right in front of Jihoon for a prime view of the little device's screen. "The one that can tell who's infected?" he asks.

"Sorry," Wonwoo laughs. "I was telling him about my day and it kind of slipped out, but I promise I didn't tell anyone else."

Jihoon snorts, as if to say _typical_ , but he addresses Mingyu all the same. "Yep, I finished it with Minghao and Jisoo this morning. I can't wait to get some sleep after this test run, and it better bloody work." He toggles with a dial, takes a deep breath, and flips the switch. The screen comes to life slowly, and their friends squirm with excitement.

"That's it, really," Jihoon announces. "The screen lights up, you can see body shapes and their heat patterns, and if it detects anything with temperatures lower than normal, it—"

Angled straight at Wonwoo and Mingyu, the device begins beeping frantically in Jihoon's hands.

  



	3. Paradise Lost

Loud in his ears is the ticking of some faraway clock, quick and unrelenting and grating - _tick tock, tick tock, tick tock._ Wonwoo wishes it would settle down, because surely, the sound is interfering with how this device is supposed to work. He stares down at the screen, the familiar outline of his own body and Mingyu's, pulsing a bright and garish white. The bulb on top of the device is blinking red. Urgent, it says, dangerous.

"W-Why's the machine beeping?" Mingyu's voice is small, trembling, masked with nervous laughter. Yet, it's the loudest thing in the room, climbing over the pale tendrils of silence wrapping themselves around Wonwoo's neck, strangling the air from him a minute inch at a time. "Something's wrong with it, right?"

"I ran the parameters three times across the algorithm checker." Minghao's gaze is angled at the floor, and Wonwoo wants to scream, to force him to look up and look him in the eye and _tell him_ this is nothing more than a prank gone ill. "I wouldn't have put it in if I didn't think it wouldn't work perfectly."

Seungcheol pushes through their friends down to the middle of the circle, pries the little controller from Jihoon's frozen hands, swivels around to point it at some of the others. For a moment, Wonwoo feels like someone on the run, fresh out of a successful heist and caught up at immigration as he tries to flee, and for a moment, one terrible moment, he wishes the metal detector would catch an innocent person instead.

But he doesn't get to make off with his catch, doesn't even get to move, when the device takes a full turn around the room and fails to light up again until it's pointed directly at the two of them. The lofty scenario in his head disappears, the pull of gravity bringing him back to crisp earth.

Seungcheol calls his name quietly. "You know what this means."

Wonwoo shakes his head. "You're wrong; that thing is wrong. We're fine," he insists. Mingyu's hand finds its way into his again, cold and clammy, desperately trying to root them both in place.

"Wonwoo," Jisoo says, hands held up in surrender, as if trying to convince a deer in headlights not to bolt in fear. "Did either of you get cut by any metal outside?"

A voice returns to him unbidden, the exact words, as if his mind had known to archive it to use in the future. _Direct access to the bloodstream will probably heighten chances._

 _Of course not_ would've been the answer he'd wanted to give - to prove his innocence, his worth, his desire to stay, but most importantly, to protect Mingyu from the world they'd only just escaped from. Selective memory has always seemed a curse, but it would be a blessing now if it would erase the images flashing through his mind - of the night he'd spent sparring with Mingyu, which he'd walked away from with a small cut on his forearm and a strange feeling of giddiness; of the attack in that town square, where they'd almost lost each other but had come out of triumphant, each other's hearts a trophy of their victory.

He remembers all the days, and realises he wouldn't give them up, even if they led him to this exact moment.

Mingyu is the one to answer, a single syllable that rings with finality and concession. "Yes."

"You didn't tell me." Jeonghan's voice is devoid of the betrayal he'd expected, only the crushing sadness of one who's sealed away the painful experience of loss.

"I didn't think of it," Wonwoo admits. He'd been so overwhelmed with relief on the day that it hadn't even occured to him. "And you didn't ask."

"Wonwoo."

Standing stock still in the middle of the circle, unmoving since he'd last spoken, Jihoon says his name firmly. His eyes are a different story, swirling with confusion and the torn consciousness of being offered a choice that would hurt either way. It registers as pity. "You can't— I'm sorry. You're... sick. Both of you are."

The hand in his is the only thing tethering him to consciousness, turning him around gently. Mingyu is chewing on his bottom lip, eyes glazed over, and if Wonwoo were frank, it hurts. They'd been so different before, eyes twinkling with mirth and mouth turned up in a breathtaking smile, but now— the flame of his candle is burning low. It takes him back to the time on his doorstep, the weight of loss pressing down on his heart like it would crush him.

Leaning forward to brush his lips against Mingyu's cheek, Wonwoo feels the hot sting of tears. (The others look away, thinking themselves intruders on a moment so intimate it couldn't possibly be for more than two.)

"How long?" he asks quietly.

Jihoon takes the device from Seungcheol, intently studying the statistics on the screen. The silence stretches out for a lifetime. "You have less than a week before you turn completely, but the effects should start showing up soon," he says softly. "Mingyu has a few days more than that. I assume your injury happened before his."

_Less than a week._

If nobody was willing to address the white elephant in the room, he will - he has to, for both their sakes. "What will you do with us?"

He can hear Mingyu's breath hitch behind him, and wishes more than anything to be able to hold him close, to kiss him until the white noise in his ears blots out all else in the world. The air is still, like when he'd woken up in that convenience store.

"We'll have to talk about it," Seungcheol finally says with a heavy exhale; Wonwoo knows the decision isn't easy to make. There is no precedent for the breaking of peace in a place that has only ever known peace. "In the meantime, you... the both of you should take off work."

Nodding wordlessly, he makes to leave. 

"Wonwoo." This time, Soonyoung calls out to him. His eyes look dimmer somewhat; it must be the light. It's cloudy today. "You're not a prisoner. If either of you need anything, let me know."

"Thanks."

The corridor back to their room feels like the one inmates take before a death sentence. The planets, he realises, have fallen out of alignment.

  


⋆

  


How much crueller could the universe be - to have given him everything he ever wanted, to let him hold it and touch it and call it his own, to allow him just enough time to learn desire before they ripped it all away from him, leaving nothing but crippling pain in its wake?

Wonwoo doesn't come to an answer, even as he spends the day trying to think of one, Mingyu's head in his lap and his heart in his hands.

The hours pass in a haze, punctuated not by minutes, but by Mingyu's soft, sweet voice. He'd asked questions ("Hyung, where's one place you would've liked to go?"), mumbled pleasant nothings ("It's so weird having nothing to do again"), kissed him, cried with him, whispered "I love you" into his ear - all with the panicked haste of someone whose days were numbered.

Mingyu's eyes are a dusty pink now, no more tears left to cry, as he stares up at the ceiling. Wonwoo feels anger tear through his chest, an ache like no other - he didn't care what happened to himself; he'd long been past valuing his life. Offering himself to the infection is something he would've done gladly, to bear the brunt of the virus for them both and to spare Mingyu.

Mingyu, who probably often needed a new set of ribs for how big his heart was. Mingyu, who deserved life. Mingyu, who's been painted out to be a criminal to stand trial, his fate in someone else's hands, even though the only thing he could possibly be guilty of is being a child in a world that needed him to grow up too fast.

The only crime he could've committed is being so beautiful that he robs Wonwoo of all the air in his little lungs.

"You're thinking," Mingyu whispers, his favourite thing to say, reaching up to touch Wonwoo's mouth.

He holds the hand in place, leaves long and lingering kisses to warm skin. "About you," his favourite reply. "About the time you saved me - you didn't have to, you _shouldn't have_ , it would never have happened to you if—"

The words die in his throat as Mingyu brings their mouths together, searing and pained and bittersweet. "I don't regret it," he whispers, when they pull apart. "I never will."

"I'm not worth it," he protests feebly.

"You're worth that and more," Mingyu insists, running the back of his hand down the side of Wonwoo's face. "Get something to eat with me?"

Despite everything, despite the clock ticking against them, Wonwoo chokes out a laugh at the mundanity of the question. He gets up, takes Mingyu with him, and makes his way out into the corridor - it's likely just past dinnertime, and they should be able to find something to eat even if nothing's been set out for them (even if they're not truly hungry).

"Why didn't you check them?"

The question comes from behind one of the closed doors - the deep rumble of Seungcheol's voice. Wonwoo freezes in his tracks, hardly daring to breathe, Mingyu's grip on his fingers so tight, he swears his knuckles are turning white.

"Okay, look - I know we're all angry and upset." Jeonghan, level and restrained. "But you don't get to give me shit for that. The reason why we agreed we needed that tech in the first place was _so_ I don't have to make judgment calls and end up doing something like this."

Jihoon sounds resigned, and Wonwoo wonders if this argument has been going on for a while. "It's not on you. The reason why they seemed clean was because the latest strain can lay dormant for a while." Wonwoo hears the shuffling of papers. "Vernon studied that some months back; it's not like it used to be, where people would turn within hours of getting infected."

"Okay, this whole discussion has gone on for too long," Jisoo says. "It doesn't matter how this happened; it matters that it _happened._ We need to decide what we're going to do moving forward."

"Well, of course they should stay. You can't possibly make them leave." Jeonghan's reply is immediate, wrought with disbelief at the idea of even considering anything else.

Junhui's mellow voice belies the incredulity he feels at the suggestion. "What? Listen, I like them; I _worked_ with Wonwoo, for god's sake. But you can't be serious - there's no way they can stay."

"Well, we should still try, right?" Soonyoung bursts out. "I mean, the fuck, where are they supposed to go? We took them in and then now we're just gonna be like, 'Oh, sorry, we can't do this anymore, please leave'?"

Wonwoo shuts his eyes, feels Mingyu press his nose into his hair. It takes all his strength to keep standing, even with the knowledge that their very presence is tearing this sanctuary apart.

Exasperation is plain in Seungcheol's voice, anger at himself for not being able to make a clear decision. Wonwoo knows, because he also knows Seungcheol is kind. "You know what, fine. We won't be able to make a call now - we're all upset, and we're clearly divided here. Tomorrow, we tell everyone in The Colony, not just our own friends. Everyone votes, because everyone should have a say in what they signed up for. Simple majority wins, and we'll decide what to do after that if necessary."

His suggestion is met with silence, the rest of them no doubt weighing its benefits against its ramifications. "We could try coming up with a cure," Soonyoung says quietly.

Wonwoo hears Jihoon, pained. "Our research work into a cure is minimal at best. You know that. We put all our resources into getting the place running; the cure wasn't something we were going to try to work on until later."

Jisoo speaks with hidden resolve. "We can still try. We're running okay now, we can—"

"You heard Jihoon," Seungcheol cuts him off. "It's not months, Shua; they only have _days._ "

"All the more reason we should try!" Jeonghan says. "Diamonds are made under pressure; you know that better than anyone. We might find a cure, we—"

"I'm all for that! Okay? I want a cure too; think of all the people we can save with it. I'm not telling you not to start work on a cure." He exhales loudly. "But what happens if you don't find it before they start to turn? What then - are we going to chain them up like animals somewhere until they kill us? Until they kill each other?"

Seungcheol asks them, so gently that Wonwoo can barely hear him, "Are you going to be the one to put a bullet through their heads?"

Five seconds of silence, then ten, twenty. Mingyu's hand shifts subtly in his, wheeling them back in the direction from which they came. Neither of them are hungry anymore.

  


⋆

  


Back in the confines of their room, the air is thick with something Wonwoo can't place. It tastes like fear, desperation, guilt, the end, mixed in one heady drink to numb the senses. Mingyu collapses onto the bed, one arm tossed over his eyes.

On any other day, Wonwoo would be content to lay next to him, waiting until he's ready to speak again - that was how they functioned when they'd first met. But the lie has been revealed, time no longer on their side, waiting no longer an option, so Wonwoo crawls atop him and gently pulls his arm out of the way, brings his hand up to peck the inside of his palm. It's his turn to say, "You're thinking."

"About you."

He presses his lips to Mingyu's, swoops down with speed enough to steal the breath from his lungs, uses skin and heat to convey everything mere words can't. Mingyu makes an obscene little sound when he pulls away, lips parting slowly (sinfully), half-lidded eyes and pretty mouth and roaming hands. "Wonwoo," he whispers, almost reverently, "I want you."

The surprise he feels is clouded by a burning ache in his chest.

"You have me." He doesn't take his eyes off Mingyu's, watches them widen slowly as he lifts the fabric of his shirt, pushes the hem past his stomach, then his chest, then his neck, his head, lets it fall clumsily to the floor. "You have me," Wonwoo murmurs against his skin, searing to the touch. He bites at Mingyu's hipbone, holds him in place even as his back arches off the mattress.

Touching him like this is like flying too close to the sun - ambitious, dangerous, probably the last thing he'll ever do before the fire takes him. The insides of Mingyu's thighs are hot, tense and trembling to the touch, and Wonwoo savours the sounds that tumble from Mingyu's lips when he leans down to suck at the skin, hard enough to bruise, then soothing the marks with a kiss.

"Wonwoo, _please,_ " he almost begs. Wonwoo has never been one to deny him anything.

He takes Mingyu in his mouth, presses his tongue flat against the underside of the shaft, and hollows his cheeks. It's an intoxicating feeling, knowing that Mingyu enjoys him like this, pulling at his hair and saying his name again and again and again.

People used to say utopia was a fantasy, a thing of dreams that existed simply to be out of reach for mortal lives, and Wonwoo would've been inclined to agree. Their world, crafted by science, had devolved into a barren wasteland. A _dys_ topia, if anything. But now he learns that it does exist - utopia - and people were wrong to say it didn't, simply because they hadn't yet experienced it.

He learns utopia when he pushes into Mingyu, stills to let him adjust to the pain, leaving a trail of reassuring kisses along his neck. He learns utopia when he starts to move, the bed rocking quietly beneath them, swallowing all the sounds Mingyu makes when their mouths meet. He learns utopia when Mingyu comes close, fingers leaving fiery red marks on Wonwoo's waist, racing each other to the edge. He learns utopia in the realisation that here they are, the(ir) world falling apart around them, yet they can afford themselves the last indulgent pleasure of being in love.

He learns utopia when Mingyu nips at Wonwoo's earlobe after his own release, gripping his arm weakly when he tries to pull out. "Inside me," Mingyu mumbles. When he comes, his vision turns white, receding into soft pink before he finally comes back to focus on Mingyu's spent, beautiful face.

"I love you." The lilt of his words settles between their bodies like fine dust.

Wonwoo is reluctant to pull out and Mingyu is reluctant to let him, but he does eventually, licking at the red marks on Mingyu's skin. "That was nice."

Wonwoo leans back slightly to smile at him. "It was."

For some moments, the lull of peace and temporary bliss overcomes them; they don't say anything. The hush is comfortable. "Wonwoo," Mingyu finally says. "You don't have to come with me, but I'm going to leave tomorrow morning."

Of course - if anyone is kind, Mingyu is kinder, and he would never sit for making his friends choose between their own lives and his. "I don't want to be a danger to them," he adds, almost as if to justify himself.

He strokes the side of Mingyu's face, stopping to cup his jaw. "I'll come; of course I'll come. I was thinking of leaving, too. It's not their fault, and I don't want to destroy what they have here. It's not fair for everyone who weren't involved in bringing us in, and probably more unfair for those who were."

_It's too much to ask for them to kill us._

Wonwoo shifts into his arms, until the curve of his back fits against that of Mingyu's body, sighing deeply as Mingyu leaves a trail of kisses down his neck, across his shoulder, a little ways down his spine. He closes his eyes - it's his last night on a proper bed.

  


⋆

  


They depart at the crack of dawn, before anyone wakes, with lightened packs and nothing else. Wonwoo had wanted to leave a note at least, to both thank and apologise to their hosts - for the trouble, for the pain, and for taking off without telling them. At least with the pen, he can try to use words as a balm for the wounds they've caused. (In the end, he doesn't; there had been no marker or paper, and walking all the way to R&D would be an unnecessary risk.)

"Scouting," Mingyu lies easily to the sentries. The women nod, wish them luck, and let them pass.

Day one is easy: putting as much distance between them and the mountain range of The Colony. Wonwoo is fairly certain no one would come after them - they hadn't the resources for that, there was no point, and he knows his friends would piece together the reason they'd left. They look back on it at noon, eating the buns they'd managed to pilfer from the kitchens just before they had taken off. They would have to raid again later in the day, when they get back to a town.

Mingyu hums, tilting his head towards the sky. "We saw those mountains for quite a while when we were with Jeonghan-hyung and Chan. Who would've thought - that was actually what every survivor would've been looking for."

(It's bittersweet, to think they'd been looking for heaven but now they're on a journey to hell.)

Falling back into their old routine comes more easily than he'd anticipated. The wanderer is their second skin, perhaps one that never truly left. Wonwoo's arm twitches uncomfortably as he waits at their rendezvous point - fifth lamppost from the drugstore - and he tries his hardest not to look.

Mingyu had shaken him awake on their third morning, pleaded with him to wake up, and when the fog in his head had cleared, he'd torn his gaze away from Mingyu's concerned expression to address the stinging sensation in his arm. He'd been clawing at it in his sleep, nails digging deep past his flesh, leaving streaks of torn skin and drying blood against the pale porcelain white. He doesn't remember doing it, doesn't feel it. He's mildly alarmed that he's starting to forget things, lapsing in and out of focus.

"Sorry I took so long." Mingyu comes padding up to him with a small box of crackers. "I wasn't sure if you liked vanilla or chocolate ones."

Wonwoo answers him with a kiss, licking into his mouth with mild desperation, lest he forgets that too.

  


⋆

  


Wonwoo hadn't had much by way of a bucket list, not even when all was still well with the world, and less so in the aftermath of its end. He still doesn't, but the hours he has during the day gives him ample time to think, scrawling each word in his head in time with Mingyu's footsteps. A piping hot bowl of _soondubu jjigae,_ maybe from that corner shop near his university, is one of the things he yearns for, but he isn't very likely to achieve that now.

He imagines what it would be like to go there with Mingyu, to duck past the threshold and lead him to his favourite seat by the window. Mingyu would be in fake glasses, made to match his own, turning heads as he walks in. Wonwoo would laugh as they fog up from the steam of their meal, twining their ankles together under the table.

Where he can't have one thing, he'll settle for another - to give Mingyu at least one night of comfort.

It's lucky coincidence, then, that the town they've found themselves in has a hotel. It must've been quite the attraction in its heyday, the glitziest thing in many miles, probably for the wary city worker or the family taking a vacation in the outskirts. Half the glass panels in the lobby are shattered, some shards stained red like tiny rubies. They walk in silence, through the carpeted hallways, up the winding showcase stairs to the mezzanine floor to watch the evening sun begin its descent past the horizon. "Must've been a nice place before all this," Mingyu muses aloud. "People would've killed for this view."

 _Well, they did,_ Wonwoo wants to say, but it's too morbid a joke for a moment like this one.

Instead, he reaches out to thread their fingers together, willing himself to commit this to memory - to remember what it feels like to hold the hand of the person he loves. The corners of Mingyu's lips lift upwards into the lopsided smile he so loves, but it's slightly different today - it's a smile of resignation and recklessness, one last show of resistance against the universe that had robbed them of the life they could've had together. An intense ache crashes into him like a tidal wave, carrying with it little waves of regret, gratitude, anger, joy; he hadn't thought it was possible to feel so many things at one time. Surely it isn't, and surely there had to be something else to call it.

When they come to the hallway of the first floor of rooms, footfalls light just in case, Mingyu had whispered, like a playground secret, "Room #7 is free today, I think."

Wonwoo lets out a breath of laughter, and follows him past a door left ajar, labelled 107.

Strangely enough, the room is as pristine as it should be, every last item in place, from the flat-screen television unit to the complimentary notepad and pencil on the nightstand to the sheets, freshly-puffed and waiting for its next guests. Mingyu strides over to the beds excitedly, slowly lowering himself onto one, eyes widening as he comes to see how soft the mattress still is.

"Hyung, this feels so nice! You should come sit," he exclaims excitedly, resting his weight on both his hands now, splayed out on the fabric.

The realisation crashes against Wonwoo like a tidal wave - the ability to feel is a privilege reserved strictly for those tethered to the earth, breathing each day in as it comes, relishing the best things as well as the smallest ones, enjoying a commitment like love as much as one would finding a good bed to sleep on. _Oh,_ he realises, _this is what it's like to feel alive._

That first unassuming night, when Mingyu had asked his age and looked at him with bright, big eyes, had been so much more than a first meeting. He hadn't truly had anything to live for before that, before Mingyu, but he's since felt like he should try to scrape through one more day, try to be better, try to live, if only to see Mingyu looking up at the stars like a child, or to brush his hair out of his face as he sleeps, or to kiss him one more time.

Mingyu hadn't given Wonwoo love, Mingyu had _taught_ him love.

Wonwoo reaches over the little writing desk to pluck the fake stalk of baby's breath from its yellow vase, turning it over in his hands before sliding it onto Mingyu's ear. "If only I'd met you before the apocalypse," he whispers. "Then maybe I could've loved you properly."

He pushes Mingyu's hair out of his eyes - they really _are_ getting too long - and bends down to kiss the crown of his head. "I would've gotten you real flowers, taken you out to the park, or maybe the river. I would've introduced you to my friends, visited you at whatever hipster cafe you wanted to work in, climbed some stupid fire escape with you so you can see all of Seoul, stayed over and called you beautiful and kissed you and slept with you."

The list of things he would've done are endless, and it hurts Wonwoo to think he would never be able to do any of them. "I would've loved you the way you deserve to be loved."

Mingyu's eyes are glassy when he looks up. "You know, my mum would've adored you? She would say I'm lucky not to have some airheaded girl or some tryhard boy, and she'd let you stay at our house for the summer if you wanted. We could go to the seaside during the day, and at night, I'd make you dinner and play board games with you and harrass you to do your share of the laundry."

Soft laughter bubbles out of Wonwoo's throat. "You would."

"Do that again," Mingyu whispers, staring at him like a child would the wonders of the wide world, arms wrapped around his waist. (They go all the way around and then some; Wonwoo is frail.)

 _God,_ for some reason, now he can't see, and he can feel his silly, silly tears spilling onto his cheeks, dripping down onto Mingyu's shirt. "Do what?"

"That thing where your nose becomes all wrinkly."

Wonwoo laughs again, and Mingyu is placated, enough to press his face into Wonwoo's shirt and cry. (The small stalk of flowers falls to the ground.)

  


⋆

  


His memory after that is blotchy at best.

The morning after their stay at the hotel, he'd seen his face in the bathroom mirror, purple veins throbbing under the stretched skin of his face.

They still travel, but not far, not when Wonwoo is prone to waking up several times in a day - once from proper sleep, and the others from lapses in consciousness, as if phasing between two people. He'd found himself on the sidewalk once, elbows digging into the concrete as he'd thrown up.

Another time, Mingyu has his hand clamped over his neck, bleeding from a misshappen gash. Wonwoo cries out in alarm, surges forward to touch it, apologises over and over because there is fresh blood on his hands. Mingyu only shushes him, insists that it isn't his fault, because both of them know this isn't him.

"It's okay, love," he would say through a thin smile. "It doesn't hurt."

  


⋆

  


"You're thinking."

The words feel like they come from a century ago, from a life he can hardly recall, through the murky black and purple in his head. But Wonwoo remembers the answer, pushes his trembling fingers through Mingyu's hair, head in his lap again as he's wont to do. "About you," he responds, and it's the truth.

Mingyu breaks into a fit of coughs, heaving into Wonwoo's shirt, curled up against him. It's funny how they're here, at the end of all things, and Mingyu looks like a disaster - bloodshot eyes and pale skin and green veins and bleeding lips - but all Wonwoo can think about is how _beautiful_ he is.

"Go to sleep," he says, and even then, his voice is changed, a far cry from the smooth and deep baritone it used to be. (He hates it.)

They hadn't talked about this, the end of the week that they'd stretched out for too long in their heads, fighting with the last pieces of themselves against the violent intruders in their bodies. They hadn't talked about how it would end, but Wonwoo had thought about it in the minutes he'd had just before they'd left their safe haven.

Even as he watches Mingyu's eyes flutter closed, listens to the way his breathing tapers out into deep curves, his chest rising and falling erratically, Wonwoo can feel the malice throbbing in his veins. A will that isn't his own presses against his mind, the noise in his head growing louder by the day, urging him either to give up or to give in.

He knows he'll turn tomorrow.

If it's one thing he still remembers, it's that Mingyu is kind, exceedingly so, fighting each day to be alive tomorrow and to make up for all the days they have yet to lose. To hurt Wonwoo would be unthinkable for him, even if his life depended on it, and the mere thought of tearing Mingyu's life away from him, by his own body but not of his own mind, a slave to some parasite, is enough to make Wonwoo realise they've come to the end.

Time has never been a friend, not even a generous acquaintance, and he's run for far too long.

He brings his lips down to Mingyu's forehead, cold as ice and bereft of its once-golden luster. "Don't wake up," he whispers. "Don't wake up."

Wonwoo takes the plunge quickly, lest he should lose courage, as he's certain he will - he reaches into his pack, fingers closing around the gun Jisoo had given him, and lifts it to his head.

  


⋆

  


(Wonwoo doesn't know how his friends reacted to their disappearance, if The Colony was ever the same again, or if they walked with a shadow in their steps, the weight of another loss heavy on their shoulders. Wonwoo doesn't see the way Mingyu cries when he wakes up alone, tears soaking through fabric as he weeps over a corpse, refusing to leave until he feels the nauseating crack of his own bones as his body begins to take on a life that isn't his. Wonwoo doesn't hear his wretched scream.

Wonwoo doesn't know how this story ends.)

 

(But of course, like all love stories, their love dies with them.)

  


**Author's Note:**

> The flow of time and human emotion are both tricky things to write, and I can only hope you've managed to feel them as Wonwoo has. Thank you for reading and for being on this (last) journey with him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Paradise Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547188) by [svtbigbang_mod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/svtbigbang_mod/pseuds/svtbigbang_mod)




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